
Class Ul i7L2^'^ 

Book .Fh e 



GoRyTightN 



10 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSJtr. 



SECRET LIFE OE THE KAISER 




Reduced facsimile of page 589 of the original manuscript in the hand- 
writing of the Baroness^ Von Larisch-Reddern. 




Reduced facsimile of page 
-f the Baroness Von 



icript in the hand- 




Reduced facsimile of page 591 of the original manuscript in the hand- 
writing &t th« Baroness Von Larisch-Reddern. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE 
KAISER 

FROM BIRTH TO EXILE 



FROM THE PRIVATE PAPERS AND DIARIES 

OF THE BARONESS VON LARISCH-REDDERN 

OF THE IMPERIAL HOUSEHOLD 



BY 

HENRY W. FISHER 

Author of 
Secret History of Royal Saxony," ** Secret Memoirs of 
Bertha Krupp" 



PUBLISHED BY 

THOMPSON-BART.OW COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



:#"'^^^ 



COPTBIGHT, 1919, BY 

REGAL PUBLISHING CORPOKATION 



APR 14 1131 

THE QUINN A eODI 



THE QUINN A eODCN 00. PRC** 



CONTENTS 



PREFACE 



PAGE 



How the Inside Story of the Kaiser's and Kaiserin's Life 
Was Written — The Chance Meeting at Moscow between 
the Baroness von Larisch and the American News- 
paper Man — The Story up to December, 1918 . . . xiii 

CHAPTER I 

The Kaiser's Birth and What Happened on That Occasion — 
Kaiser Was Beaten into Life with a Wet Towel— His 
Rage When after His Father's Death He Found Queen 
Victoria's Telegram Asking Whether He "Was a Fine 
Boy "—The Doctors Were Late in Discovering the Royal 
Baby's Deformed Arm and Hand — Nature of the De- 
formity, Which Kaiser Tries to Hide— All Sorts of 
Maneuvers — Kaiser's Morbid Fear of Illness— Has Al- 
ways Been Ailing More or Less — A Grave Trial to His 
Valets — Hearing of Death in Neighbor's House He Ran 
Away from Home and Hid in the Apartments— Haunted 
by the White Lady— Fear of Illness Causes Him to 
Maltreat Servants— Even His Lady Loves Suffer When 
Someone Has a Cold in the Family 1 

CHAPTER II 

Kaiser's Madness Doesn't Seem to Be Real— Perhaps It Was 
Feigned According to Plan — But His Blood-Thirstiness 
Is Very Real— What a Famous Alienist Has to Say on 
the Subject — The Kaiser Likened to a Junker Who 
Feeds Like a Pig — Kaiser's Assumption of Divine Powers 
— That Famous Noodle, Prince Henry, Trained Like a 
Poodle Dog— Jabbers Anything "Big Brother" Tells 
Him to Repeat — Kaiser's Modest Estimate of Himself 
—The "Insult to Majesty" Humbug— " May the Old 
Man Rot in Prison"— A Vanderbilt About to Be Fired 
at by Kaiser's Sentinel — Kaiser's Real Idea as to a 
Soldier's Duty — First Draft of an Infamous-Famous 
Speech — Kaiser an Epileptic 19 

CHAPTER III 

Decollette Talk and Dresses — Kaiser Wondered Where the 

Crown Prince, When a Little Boy, Got His Nasty 

Tongue From — How the Kaiser Shocked Poor " Nicky " 

—Organized Imperial Shams— Swinish Table Manners of 

vil 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Courtiers — A New York Periodical Shocki Kaiser and 
Comes Near Causing the Sack of a Royal Minister — 
How the Song-of-Aegis Fraud Was Perpetrated— Row 
a German Prince Demeaned Himself Before the Kaiser 
— As a Strategist, the Kaiser Was a Joke — Fraudulent 
Stories Regarding Kaiser's ''Ceaseless*' Activities "For 
the Public Good " — He Worked Very Hard Enjoying 
Himself Instead — Employed Artists to do tlie ** Works 
of Art " for which He Claimed Credit — When the Kaiser 
Tried to Rival Caruso — Official Press Lies About Kaiser 
— Kaiser's Speedies Full of Platitudes and Ignorant 
Misquotations 36 

CHAPTER IV 

The Savage at Home — Kaiser Sets a Drillmaster to Brow- 
beat His Wife, His Courtiers and Domestics — Servants 
Threatened With Fists and Sticks— William Ran His 
House as He Wanted to Run the World — "I Won't 
Stand Any Nonsense from Any of You '' (Meaning the 
Nations) — Story About William's Double — Herbert Bis- 
marck Gave the Empress Many Heartaches — Tlie Im- 
perial Court A-tremble — Who the Infamous Eulcnburg 
Really Was — Kaiser Sponged on Him for Years — ^" The 
Woman Pays" — A Woman of the Eulenburg Family 
Paid Cost of Kaiser's Entertainments — One Must Needs 
Bring Out All the Circumstances to Understand the 
Baseness of His Character 55 



CHAPTER V 

How Kaiser Drove His Mother from House and Home — 
Desecration in the House of the Dead — Kaiserin a Mere 
Puppet, Who Thought EverjiJiing William Did W^as 
Well Done — The Empress Frederick's Scathing Indict- 
ment of Her Daughter-in-Law — Wlien the Kaiser Docked 
His Servants Butter in Order to Save a Few Marks for 
Pomp and Circumstance — The Kaiserin Lampooned — 
Disgraceful Familv Jars — A Miniature Kaiser Who Imi- 
tated William in the Maltreatment of His Mother— Tell- 
tale Statement br Princess Frederick Charles — Kaiser 
Too Mean to Offer His Old Aunt a Bed— Starving Royal 
Highnesses, but William Cares Not — Other Kings Avoid 
Kaiser's Kisses , . 69 



CHAPTER^ VI 

Appearance of the Empress — Her Hobbies — Kaiser Is Con- 
stantly Meddling — The Kaiserin's Vanity — Description 
of Her Boudoir— Her Pathetic Love for the Kaiser — 
Glimpses of Daily Life in the Court 86 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VI 



PXGE 



Unhappy Condition of the Kaiserin — Her Fear of Her 
Husband — Details of Family Life at Court — William's 
Lack of Interest in His Children — How He Spent His 
Days — His Consuming Jealousy of His Wife — His Bru- 
tality Toward Her— Court Scenes During the Berlin 
Riots — The Royal Bedroom — The Kaiser's Imperious- 
nes9 — How the Kaiserin Played an Unexpected Joke on 
Him ' 106 

CHAPTER VIII 

Enter the Kaiser's Favorites — Four Women Who in Turn 
Cslptivate His Fancy, and Who, One by One, Were Sent 
Into Exile by the Jealous Kaiserin — Glimpses of Vul- 
garity of Court Life 128 

CHAPTER IX 

Courtly Manners That Smack of a Cheap Vaudeville Green 
Room — A Royal " Lady Who Would Be Blackballed in 
in a Theatrical Boa'rding House — Kaiser Mistakes 
Friend's House for a Speakeasy — ^Transparent Royal 
Affections — William's Blood Lust— How He Treats the 
People Whom He Casts Out of House and Home— 
The Indian Roval Man-hunter and the Kaiser Imitating 
Him . . / 149 

CHAPTER X 

William's Morbid Restlessness— His Contempt for Others' 
Comfort— His Passion for Sleeping in Railway Car- 
riages — His Uneasiness at Hoine — His Complaints— 
About Cost of Family— His Past Regal Extravagance — 
His Uncontrollable WTiims — The Excuses for Constant 
Travel Invented — " Alarming " a Peaceful Tov^m — Eating 
the Royal Danes Out of House and Home — "Castles" 
I'hat Are Empty Barns 167 

CHAPTER XI 

The Kaiser's " Uneasy Head "—His Disdain for " Plebeians " 
— People Without Handles to Their Name — Glimpses 
of Royal Society — Diplomacy on a Grand Scale — In- 
trigue at Home and Abroad — The Kaiser in's Constant 
Jealousy— His Conversation " Smacked of the Stable " — 
Some of His Escapades — How the Kaiser Was '* Shad- 
owed" by His Wife — Some Interesting Anonymous Let- 
ters and the Facts That Lay Behind Them— A Stingy 
Lover is the Kaiser — Anonymous Letters Show German 
Society to Be as Rotten as 'its Royal Master . . .180 



CONTENTS 
CHAPTER XII 



PA<3E 



The Kaiser's Annual Four Millions Insufficient to Keep Him 
Out of Debt-^Slow in Paying Bills— Her Majesty With- 
out Income — Constant Wrangles Over Money — Kaiser's 
Lack of Sense of Money Values a Mental Defect — His 
Miserliness With Servants — Penuriousness and Extrava- 
gance by Turns — Woeful Lack of Business Capacity — 
German People Refused to Support His Extravagances 
—The Truth About the Guelph Fund— Kaiser Confis- 
cated the Private Fortune of a Conquered King . .196 



CHAPTER XIII 

Organized Meanness at the Prussian Court — The Kaiser Bor- 
rows from Servant Girls, and, Besides, Beats Them 
Out of Their Wages, According to Authenticated State- 
ments of Court Officials — Hungry Chore-vi^omen Haunt 
the Corridors — No Fires to Warm by, Not a Drop of 
Hot Water; Wages 60 Cents Per Day for 12 to 14 
Hours' Work — Kaiser's Regular Servants Earned $7.50 
Per Month — Americans May Well Ponder Kaiser's 
Salary List — Kaiser Won't Hear of Distress Among His 
Servants — They Have Not the Right of Petition — Miser- 
liness in Royal Family — Salary List in Kaiser's House- 
hold — Wage Earners Obliged to Pay Expenses of 
Journeys Undertaken for Kaiser 211 



CHAPTER XIV 

The Kaiser as a Military Despot — Ridiculous as a General, 
but a Good Enough Clotheshorse — His Stores, after 
William Ran Away, Full of Uniforms and "Cits" 
Clothes— The "Reds" Dressed Up in the Latter, Sold 
the Uniforms — Why the Army Didn't Care for the 
Cheating Warlord — Sponging on Army Officers — Kai- 
ser's Foolishness on the Field — Scolding the Empress in 
Public — Kaiser Drove Officer to Suicide after the Latter 
Had Whipped Him— When the Kaiser Drank to Forget 225 



CHAPTER XV 

The Kaiser and What He Promised to Do to Subjects Oppos- 
ing His Authority — Would Make the Gutters Run With 
Citizens' Blood; But, Instead, He Sneaked Off to Hol- 
land — ^Wanted His Forty-two Millions of Prussians to 
Die for Him — Insulted Royalty as Well as Ordinary 
Folk, but Got Paid Back— Royalty Knew All Along 
That He Was a Fraud; He Imposed Only on Plain 
"Cits*'— The French Ambassador in Berlin "Cleans 



CONTENTS xi 

PAGE 

House " in His Own Way, and Tells William So to His 
Face — From Royal Funeral to Royal Vaudeville — The 
Kaiser Robs a Fund Intended for Charity to Enrich His 
Wife's Rich Uncle — Characteristics of the Prussian 
Junkers — The Kaiser's Mother-in-Law and What She 
Thinks of Him — Her Highness' Estimate of the "Pig- 
Dog " and of " Confounded Prussians " — The Duchess' 
Most Extraordinary Craze — How She Kept the Palace 
in an Uproar o' Nights 242 



CHAPTER XVI 

The War Is the Kaiser's Making — Father and Son Arrange 
the Murder of an Archduke between Them — General 
Moltke Was Too "Ladylike" for Little Willy, Who 
Demanded a Mcfre Hardened Assassin — Passage of Arms 
between the Two Willies — Kaiser's Thousand-fold Activi- 
ties When War Was on the Carpet — That Crown-council 
Dispute — A Theatrical Performance to Order— How 
"Daisy" Was Dispatched to London to Lure Away 
Lords Roberts and Kitchener — William Meant to Make 
Them Prisoners of War in Time of Peace— The Full 
Story of the Attempted Entrapping— The Imperial 
Horoscope Predicting His Success in War — The Court 
During War Times— Responsibility for the War Crime 
—A Schedule of His Properties 264 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

I HAVE been asked how I came to gather the information 
for this authentic expose of the life of the ex-Kaiser. 
That is quite a story and I will relate it as briefly as 
possible. 

I happened to be one of four American correspond- 
ents at the Coronation of the late Czar Nicholas at 
Moscow, in the early summer of 1896. At one of the 
court balls, to which we were bidden. Lord Li, the son 
of Li Hung Chang, the famous Chinese Viceroy, called 
the Bismarck of the East, asked me the name of a tall, 
distinguished looking lady who appeared to be in the 
suite of Princess Henry of Prussia. Lord Li said his 
father wanted to know. 

Naturally I made haste to find out, and a Russian 
Chamberlain was good enough to formally introduce 
me after previously volunteering a short history of 
the lady. The Baroness von Larisch-Reddem, I 
learned, had been, for ten years, chief of the Kaiser's 
household, — that is she had held the most confidential 
post at the Berlin court, a position that brought her 
in daily, almost hourly, contact with Wilhelm, the Em- 
press Augusta Victoria, the royal children, the cour- 
tiers, and all who \isited the Kaiser's court, royal rela- 
tives and native and foreign royalties, distinguished 
Germans and ditto visitors to Berlin, — in short with 
everyone worth knowing. 

At the time of our meeting at Moscow, the Baroness 
was Maid of Honor to Princess Henry, a sister of the 
Czarina, crowned a day before. The Baroness asked 
me many questions about America, and as, owing to the 
hubbub around us, it was impossible to talk connectedly, 
I promised to visit her next afternoon at her lodgings 

xiii 



XIV 



PREFACE 



in the Kremlin. But by the time I saw her again, her 
Ladyship, womanlike, had forgotten all about her in- 
terests in the States and during our two hours' chat 
she talked of nobody and nothing but William Hohen- 
zoUem. 

I had once spent half a day with the Kaiser when 
acting as^ assistant to Mr. Russel, the famous London 
photographer, who went to Berlin to take the Kaiser's 
picture for the Marine exhibition ; as Berlin correspond- 
ent for English, French and American newspapers. I 
had had the Kaiser under less close observation time 
and again. I had read all the books, magazine and 
newspaper articles and pamphlets printed about 
William; I had talked to dozens of people supposed 
to be in the inner circle of his confidence, masters and 
mistresses of court gossip; I had a thousand scandals 
connected with the Berlin court at my fingers' ends — 
but the sayings of the Baroness took my breath away. 

Here, at last, was the real William, the William in 
dressing gown and pajamas; here was an empress, 
shorn of state and crown — n mere peevish and petty 
and entirely womanlike woman. I had thought Russel 
a great photographer; the Baroness was a better one; 
I had thought Pepys the most wonderful retailer of 
small talk, but Madame von Larisch beat the famed 
chronicler of Charles II's court and times. 

" Mercy ! " I cried, " if I had a memory as large as 
the Sphinx's head, I couldn't remember half of what 
you said." 

" Then I will write it for you," quoth the Baroness. 

" All you have told me ? " 

" Yes, and a thousand times more." 

" But how can I ask for such a sacrifice of time en 
your part? " 

" Oh ! I am not as disinterested as I seem," replied 
the Baroness, " first of all : I want to let the world 
know what kind of man William is, and secondly, I 
want you to do me a service." 



PREFACE XV 

I would have promised her the town and county of 
Jerusalem, if she had asked for them, and I certainly 
made it clear to madame that I would do anything 
within reason or even a few foolish things, if she in- 
sisted. 

But what she asked for was quite easy. 

" This card," she said, handing me a pasteboard, 
" will admit you to the banquet of German princes to 
be held at the Crown chambers to-night. At this gath- 
ering you shall act as my reporter, — you shall put 
down for me everything said and done, no, not those 
cut and dried speeches court marshals and secretaries 
concoct, only the impromptu sayings and actions, things 
not on the program." 

" But suppose nothing happens, suppose they act 
just like junior princes usually do? " 

" They won't," said the Baroness, with a sinister 
emphasis on the last word. " I am sure there will be 
trouble of some sort, and you will tell me all about it, 
won't you ? " 

" I sure will," I affirmed in true Western style, and 
when, at 1 o'clock in the morning I was ushered into her 
Ladyship's parlor a second time, the Russian servant, 
guarding the threshold of her private rooms, seemed to 
have expected me, for he rushed off into an inner 
chamber as soon as he heard my name, and the Baroness 
followed close upon his heels, dragging an enormous 
court train, partly detached, after her. 

"What has happened," she cried. "My Princess 
(referring to Princess Henry of Prussia) is in tears, 
but won't say a word. ' State secrets,' she vows. 
And the Prince is writing like mad, keeping our whole 
cypher brigade going full tilt. He is telegraphing to — 
whom ? " 

" To the Kaiser, most likely," I answered her ques- 
tioning eyes. 

" I thought so," cried the Baroness. " Now report, 



xvi PREFACE 

Here is the story I told her; it seemed singularly 
tame to me at the time : 

At the gathering of the German princes, there was 
much eating, drinking, coughing, gurgling and picking 
of teeth, nothing remarkable or unusual in that. And 
the speeches were a continuous flow of platitudes, and 
imbecilities — the Kaiser had set the fashion in that line, 
you know. The last official address had been entrusted 
to a distinguished Russian-German of high position in 
Moscow society. He spoke in German, but not in the 
choicest and right at the opening of his speech, he put 
his foot in it. 

" Thrice welcome," he shouted, " to the great German 
princes that came here in the suite of the Kaiser's 
brother — — " 

He didn't get any further for as he pronounced the 
word " suite," Prince Louis of Bavaria (the heir to 
the Crown who subsequently became king) rose heavily 
and, smashing the table in front of him with his clenched 
fist, cried, " To the devil with your suite ! We German 
princes are not traveling in anybody's suite. We came 
here on our own account to represent our kingdoms, 
grand duchies and principalities, even as Henry came 
to represent his brother, the Kaiser. Prince Henry is 
one of us, but no overlord by any means. As to the 
Kaiser himself, as royal personages we are his equals in 
all respects. What do your Royal Highnesses say.? 
Am I stating the case correctly.? " 

Before Louis had half-finished, all the guests, save 
Henry of Prussia, were on their feet, shouting and 
gesticulating to show their complete agreement with 
the royal spokesman of Bavaria. 

The turmoil lasted five or six minutes and the banquet 
was as good as broken up, for the princes were so 
excited they paid no further attention to the program, 
talked among tliemselves and drank each other's health 
in such quick succession that the majority got tipsy. 
Poor Prince Henry, the innocent cause of the trouble, 



PREFACE xvii 

sat like a whipped dog, and it was a great relief to 
him when one of his gentlemen came, bringing him a 
dispatch. Upon this, he rose abruptly, and bowing all 
around, hastily left the banquet room. 

The Baroness listened with every evidence of excite- 
ment. But she didn't seem surprised and my private 
opinion is that Louis's outburst, aimed at the Kaiser, 
had been prearranged and that Madame the Baroness 
was perhaps privy to the plot. As soon as I finished 
my story, she rose, shook hands with me, thanked me 
profusely, and said, " I am off to wire the Kaiser. He 
will have my story hours before Prince Henry's comes 
limping in. I know the Russian chief censor and I am 
afraid Henry won't have much luck with his cypher 
dispatch. First it will have to be deciphered, and then 
they will take their time thinking whether it should be 
sent or not." 

Next day I met the Baroness by appointment for the 
third time, and we agreed upon the plan of the book in 
embryo. As I was due to return to New York within 
three months, she promised to begin writing at once and 
by the time I arrived in the States, she would have sent 
fifty or sixty thousand words to my New York address. 
That promise her Ladyship faithfully kept and every 
two weeks afterwards I received further packets of her 
MS. until I had about one hundred thousand words or 
more. 

I have given you a page of the Baroness's MS. As 
you perceive, there is not a break or paragraph in it. 
Neither was there a break or paragraph in the entire 
one hundred thousand words. That was my greatest 
trouble: — study out and disentangle sentences and 
chapters and sections in " the awful German tongue," 
as Mark Twain put it. 

For the rest, I was able to verify nearly every one 
of the statements made by the chief of the imperial and 
royal household. Where I failed, the failure was due 
to the fact that her Ladyship had been the sole eye- 



XVlll 



PREFACE 



witness. I made two different trips to Germany to 
clear up several mysteries in the copy and on these 
trips gathered much additional evidence as to the 
Kaiser"'s private life and life at the German court. 



Within a week or ten days after the signing of the 
armistice a courier or King's Messenger attached to one 
of the minor legations at the Court of St. James, came 
to see me at my lodgings in London, bringing the first 
news of the Baroness since July and August, 1914. 

" Her Ladyship wants you to know that, while not 
officially connected with the court, she is a constant 
visitor at the Schloss and palace and is keeping a close 
watch on her old master and mistress, and everything 
and everybody connected with the court. As soon as 
it will be permissible to send uncensored mail matter 
from Germany, you will receive a budget of news from 
her dealing with the Kaiser during the war." 

I immediately went to the War Office and inquired 
when the censorship was likely to be raised. 

" It has been decided to raise it on January 6, 1919," 
I was told. 

And the steamship Lapland, on which I had engaged 
passage after much trouble, was due to sail a day later, 
January 7th. 

So I went to the '■ Legation and told my 

troubles to the King's Messenger. 

" Don't worry," he said, " I just received orders to 
go North to-night, I am leaving on a British torpedo 
boat, and will be back in London before Christmas. 
When I touch land, I will get the Baroness on the long 
distance, and if you don't grudge the expense, I will 
get the information you are after from her own lips." 

The courier did even better. While waiting at 
Copenhagen to return to London, he received a thirty 
page letter from the Baroness, dated Berlin, December 



PREFACE xix 

1st, which detailed the news I was so anxious to 
procure. 

According to plan, the courier read Madame von 
Larisch's statement over several times^ committing it to 
memory, for his memory is simply phenomenal. So, 
when his Minister of Foreign Affairs ordered him to 
show the contents of his mail pouch before departing 
for London, he cheerfully handed over the Larisch docu- 
ments, as all papers not strictly appertaining to govern- 
ment business were taboo. 

Before embarking for England, the courier called up 
the house near the Puppenbrucke, Berlin, where the 
Baroness had a flat. The manager of the apartment 
house answered the call : " I am sorry to announce," he 
said, " that her Ladyship is no more. Like so many 
other good people belonging to the court and society, 
she was killed a few days ago during the bombardment 
of the royal stable buildings and the neighborhood of 
the Schlossr 

Further details are missing, but the courier, upon his 
arrival in London, detailed the contents of Baroness von 
Larisch's last letter to me, and knowing her copy as I 
do, it sounded to me as if he were voicing her very own 
words. " Mine is a phonograph memory," said the 
courier promptly. 

Henry William Fisher. 



CHAPTER I 

"IS IT A FINE BOY?" 

Victoria 

But one person, Major von Normann, of the First 
Guards, was present, when, on June 15, 1888, at noon 
scarcely an hour after Emperor Frederick had breathed 
his last. Kaiser Wilhelm II drew the above dispatch 
from his father's papers. 

" What did His Majesty say on discovering the 
Queen's telegram? " I asked Normann at the late 
Emperor's funeral. 

" Not a word ; yet he turned a shade paler, while 
his left hand convulsively closed around the hilt of his 
saber." 

Every time a Prussian king dies, a spirit of unspeak- 
able savagery takes hold of his lawful successor. 

The Empress Frederick, her daughters, the memhers 
of her court, her physician, friends and servants were 
prisoners for many hours, beginning at five minutes 
past eleven o'clock on June 15, 1888. Until her son 
and heir had concluded his investigations and made all 
arrangements he intended to effect, no living soul was 
allowed to leave Castle Friedrichskron ; sentinels with 
loaded rifles stood over the telegraph operators to pre- 
vent communication with the outer world, and the 
telephone was similarly guarded. 

That upon the heel of these measures the newly- 
made Kaiser invited Normann to attend him in his 
search for state papers and other documents, of which 
the one mentioned, while not the most valuable, was 
certainly not the least interesting, shows the extent of 



2 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

his confidence in this man, then esteemed as a strict dis- 
ciplinarian, but in no other way distinguished. 

I would not like to assert that the imperial proclama- 
tions to the army and navy, dated June 15, 1888, were 
composed with von Normann's assistance while impa- 
tient crowds surrounded the palace, demanding news of 
the King whom they vaguely supposed to be dead; — 
but these papers are so full of barrack bravado and 
contempt for everything not military as to strongly 
suggest some such influence. 

" Thus we belong to each other, — I and the army, — 
thus we were born for each other, and thus we will stick 
to each other forever, be there peace or storm, as God 
wills it." 

And while the army was honored and exalted, the 
loyal taxpayers had to wait for the customary royal 
greeting and a word of information on the issues of 
the day, until the 18th of the month. 

But to return to Queen Victoria's telegram. 

It was dated January 28, 1859, twenty-four hours 
after the eldest son of Crown Prince and Crown Princess 
Frederick- William had seen the light. 

William was born quite economically, a midwife re- 
ceiving him, and a court physician, assisted by the then 
highly-reputed Berlin specialist for woman's diseases, 
the late Dr. Martin, looking gravely on after the 
manner of his kind. 

In Germany, you must know, a doctor thinks is be- 
neath himself to take the child, and is supposed to act 
only in case grave complications arise; nine times out of 
ten he contents himself by superintending the arrange- 
ments and in seeing that the sanitary laws are complied 
with in all minuteness ; the midwife does the work. 

In the case of the Crown Princess of Prussia, a Miss 
Stahl acted as midwife ; at the time of this writing she 
was a motherly woman, and still continued her visits to 
the palace; so I often had occasion to talk with her 
about the great event in her life. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 3 

" Her poor Royal Highness," said the old woman, 
" was only two months past eighteen years, and very 
weak and nervous. You see, with her it was not an 
ordinary case of first motherhood; politics were mixed 
up in it to a frightful degree, and the poor young thing 
felt the fate of Europe trembling in her lap, for our 
King Frederick William IV was as crazy as a March 
hare, and twenty-one years had passed since a midwife 
was called to the Prince Regent's house to bring into 
the world little Louise, now Grand Duchess of Baden. 

" Our work had been divided as follows. Dr. Martin 
was to have special care of Her Royal Highness, inas- 
much as he was treating her for a nervous malady ; the 
court physician had his ordinary duties, while I was 
commanded to take the child. But the moment the 
little one was born a despairing moan from the mother 
overthrew all these fine dispositions. 

" ' The Crown Princess is dying,' whispered the 
doctors, while working with blanched faces over Vic- 
toria's prostrate body. Of course, I had to abandon 
the child momentarily to help them, and when — the 
Crown Princess having revived after a while — -I knelt 
down before the couch on which our heir rested, imagine 
my fright: he had not yet uttered a cry, nor did he 
move a muscle. ' Still-born, by Heaven ! ' I thought. 
A gesture brought Dr. Martin to my side, and together 
we labored over the newly-born, I do not know how 
long, exhausting successively every means ordained by 
medical books, or practiced in the nursery, to bring the 
child to life." 

I will state here, that Miss Stahl was a very dignified 
woman, broad and short, and of an excessively grumpy 
disposition.'"Very seldom did she smile. The old dame 
^recounted her story to this point, given always with the 
dignity becoming to a person of her worth ; but, as she 
continued, her face broadened with merriment, and her 
famous basso resounded through the room with a break 
here and there that came very near a laugh. 



4 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

" When everything had been done that in decency 
could be done," so ran her narrative, " I took that royal 
youngster under my left arm, and, grabbing a wet towel 
in my riglit hand, began to belabor him in good, homely 
fashion, though the doctors groaned and everybody 
in the room looked horrified. 

" ' To the devil with etiquette,' I thought, seeing 
their grimaces ; ' this is a matter of life or death.' So 
I spanked away, now lighter, now harder, slap, slap, 
slap until — the cannons announcing the birth had half- 
finished their official quota of a hundred and one shots 
— until at last a faint cry broke from the young one's 
lips. 

" He was alive ! I had snatched our Prince from the 
grave for which he seemed destined. The rest was easy 
sailing; the doctors again had their innings and the 
simple midwife was shoved aside." 

" But what about the deformed hand and arm ? " 

" That was discovered only the third or fourth day 
after," replied Miss Stahl ; " you see, at first we were 
all so busy keeping life in the Prince, after I put it 
there, that no one thought of examining his limbs. 
Even when, on January 28, the late Crown Prince 
showed his son to his relatives, friends and the house- 
hold no one observed that anything was wrong. But 
on the last, or the last but one day of the month, it 
was noticed that the child did not move his left arm; 
an investigation was made, and, in the course of it, the 
surgeons discovered that the elbow joint was dislocated. 
That is nothing serious in a healthy child. However, 
in the case of our Prince, the surrounding soft parts 
were so injured, and the muscles attached in such a 
condition, that no one dared attempt to set the bone 
then and there as should be done in all cases." 

Miss Stahl concluded her remarks with the state- 
ment : " I am well aware that the present condition of 
the Kaiser's arm is attributed to a mistake made by 
the persons officiating at the birth; but," and sayings 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 5 

this, the old maid's face assumed its most determined 
look, " if that were not a falsehood, agreeable to the 
Kaiser, do you suppose for one moment that I should 
be in this palace now to cripple more Hohenzollerns ? " 
Saying this Miss Stahl used to bring down her fist 
forcibly and concluded : " My opinion has always been 
that the child's left forearm was not properly made up 
by nature, as, indeed, his whole left side was weak, and 
is weak to this day. 

" Everyone in the palace knows that though his walk 
is brisk, it is his ever-alert exertion that makes it so; 
if, at any time, the Kaiser ceased thinking of his short- 
comings for only a moment, you would see his left leg 
drag. All his aches and pains too, locate in his left ear 
and the whole left side of his head. Now remember 
what I told you about the Crown Princess's condition. 
She was agitated by fears and depressed in spirits ; 
great responsibilities weighed upon her mind. Is it to 
be wondered at that her child was affected .^^ 

" The mother, poor girl ! transfused her nervous ail- 
ments into the child she was carrying, and all concen- 
trated in its left side. That myself and the doctors 
were unable to prevent or foresee; besides we were, as 
stated, far too busy completing nature's handiwork by 
inflating and keeping the Prince's respiratory organs 
going, to test 'the inferior parts of his body separately. 
If, on the other hand, the Prince had been a lusty boy, 
the dislocated joint would, undoubtedly, have been 
promptly discovered and nothing would have stood in 
the way of its immediate correction." 

So the chances are that Queen Victoria's telegram 
was answered in the affirmative. 

In the babel of contradictory statements Miss Stahl's 
observations have the grateful ring of veracity. Surely, 
Miss Stahl was not to blame. If it were otherwise, would 
the Kaiser have tolerated her in the palace? 

William was a hard master, and as for suffering in 
his service a person having blasted his life by cruel 



6 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

neglect, that is as entirely out of the question as the 
idea I heard advanced off and on, that he is insensitive 
to his disablement. 

That incubus, on the contrary, was forever in his 
thoughts, and his apparent unmindfulness of the fact a 
clever affectation. He wanted others to forget that 
he is a cripple, and therefore ignored his shortcomings. 

But, with all that, he was sure to be found napping 
occasionally ; I can very well imagine the Kaiser closing 
his hand nervously round the hilt of his saber as he 
read that tell-tale dispatch I 

" Is it a fine boy? " Ah, his grandmother had good 
reason for feeling anxious about this infant in whose 
veins coursed the blood of the four Georges ! It was 
that English consanguinity which he loathed and ab- 
hored, not the little woman who received him in her arms 
already tainted and marked for life. 

That, despite his perfect understanding of the case, 
he allowed his historians to abuse Miss Stahl, was but 
an instance of royal ingratitude dictated by the same 
policy that, from the summer of 1887 to the close of 
the reign of one hundred days, branded certain of his 
father's physicians liars and incompetents. 

In this particular instance it happened, however, that 
the biter was bitten; at the time indicated. Prince 
William would have gladly seen Mackenzie go to the 
devil ; and the findings of the German colleagues, that 
Frederick III suffered from cancer, a malady said to 
exclude its victim from the throne, proclaimed from 
the housetops — but when he himself was King it was 
quite another matter. The world's eye, instead of 
compassionately regarding the sickroom at San Remo, 
was riveted upon the stationary or floating or rolling 
hospitals in which he dwelled as in a glass house — hence 
the "remaking" of history, the dissemination of his- 
torical untruth at all hazards ! 

But they must not be too replete with details. Thus 
I once heard the Kaiser, in conversation with his wife, 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 7 

roundly abuse Hinzpeter for saying in his book : " The 
Prussian army never admitted a young man physically 
so little fit to become a brilliant and dashing cavalry 
officer as William." 

Tlie criticism was passed shortly after the appear- 
ance of Hinzpeter's " Kaiser William II, a Sketch from 
Life," and the Emperor, after warning his Augusta 
against letting the volume fall into the children's hands, 
meaning the elder boys, continued: "Our German 
philosophers never know where to stop; whether they 
write truths or lies, they are bound to compromise and 
expose their betters without ever realizing it." 

His fateful left arm the Kaiser hugs closely to his 
body, allowing the hand which is not deformed, but 
puny, like a child's, to rest against his waist, or upon 
his hip, if on horseback. The German papers issued 
ballons d'essai from time to time to ascertain sentiment 
in respect to the introduction of a belt for army officers. 
As the Emp^-ess Eugenie reestablished the crinoline 
in the sixties to hide her interesting condition, so 
William desires to change military dress to find a con- 
venient resting place for his poor left hand and arm, 
which, being about six inches shorter than the right, 
would attach to a belt unostentatiously. But, alas; 
the General Staff feigned to regard those recurring 
proposals as maneuvers of army contractors, and 
treated them with fine scorn, so that William, unwilling 
to own his secret reason for the innovation sought for, 
had to go without relief. 

Those were gloomy days in the palace when the pros 
and cons of opinion on the subject were read by the 
Emperor. They put him into the mood for smashing 
things, and his famous speech to the Brandenburgers 
was made under just such circumstances : " Those 
who will support me are heartily welcome, whoever they 
are, but those obstructing my policy I will smash to 
pieces." 

As intimated, the fingers of the crippled hand are 



8 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

movable, for although the head of the radius of the 
forearm does not set properly into the condyle of the 
humerus, the limb is^ not altogether inert. There is 
consequently no reason for doubting Major von Ner- 
mann's assertion that the Kaiser clutched his sword 
with the left hand. I have seen him do the same thing 
quite often when angry. But while he can take hold 
of an article, he cannot for the life of him lift it. For 
instance, he holds the reins in his left hand, but is 
powerless to direct the horse except with his right or 
with his knees. 

Without exaggeration it may be said that, next to 
the stricken man, the five imperial valets, always on 
duty to dress, undress, and reuniform their master, 
suifer most on account of this infirmity. One of them. 
Her Majesty's valet Nolte, made my maid the con- 
fidante of his troubles. 

" We would not mind the work," I heard him say 
once, " would not care if the Emperor changed his uni- 
form ten, instead of three or four times per day, it's 
the fear of injuring his lame hand that makes us nerv- 
ous and gradually wears away our usefulness. And, 
besides, we must always be prepared to forestall the 
collapse of the All-highest when he balances himself on 
his left foot, as is his wont sometimes when he is in a 
hurry to put on a different pair of trousers." And, 
after thinking awhile, the man added : " If thej^ would 
only introduce for all troops, horse, foot, and artillery, 
not excepting the navy, a uniform pair of pantaloons, 
one-half of our cares would be removed, but this end- 
less variety is killing us." 

William's right hand is massive and ugly in appear- 
ance, ugly too, when clasping that of a friend. Before 
I was presented to him, court marshal von Liebenau 
warned me against his mighty grip ; but, though I went 
through the ordeal with teeth set, I could hardly sup- 
press an outcry, which amused the Prince exceedingly. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 9 

How proud the Emperor used to be of his personal 
strength was evident from the fact that he promptly 
adopted the simile suggested to him several years ago, 
when a foreign correspondent likened his fist to the 
" terrible right " of the then champion of the world, 
John L. Sullivan, whereupon his sister of Meiningen, 
who adores strong men, remarked : " I hope Sullivan 
has not the bad taste to wear as many rings as my 
big brother." 

This weakness is, however, to some extent excusable, 
as it is thus the Kaiser tries to hide a number of nasty 
moles which disfigure his hand. In this he partly suc- 
ceeds, while in spots the glittering diamonds and rubies 
only tend to emphasize the blemishes. 

I dare say very few people have a correct notion of 
the Emperor's height, for, as he is seldom seen with- 
out a helmet terminating in a point, the public is mysti- 
fied, and even close observers are apt to be deceived. 
In the palace this question is never openly discussed, 
but I heard the Kaiserin tell overinquisitive Prince 
Eitel Fritz once or twice that his father measured five 
feet eight inches. That, I am sure, is a mistake; five 
feet five or six inches is the highest that, even Adjutant 
Count Moltke,^ who has a very sure eye in such matters, 
allows. He presents however a respectable enough fig- 
ure, holding himself straight as an arrow. 

The numerous newspaper persons who talk glibly 
about the Kaiser's " cancerous " ear trouble have, I 
imagine, information on the point that was inaccessible 
tojthose in daily attendance upon His Majesty, for 
whether the dread malady has settled in that organ or 
not, is an open question even with William's own phy- 
sicians. Improbable it is not. 

It was Queen Louise of Strelitz, " sharing with Marie 
Antoinette the sad pre-eminence of beauty and mis- 
fortune," who carried carcinoma into the Prussian 
camp ; the English escaped the doom only because eco- 



10 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

nomical George III preferred Caroline of Brunswick 
for his son, her dowry being larger by a few thousand 
thalers than the Mccklonburgers\ 

The English Royal family escaped with a budget of 
vile scandal — the Prussians got the lesser dowry and 
the most awful disease to boot — hard luck or fate? 
After the Four Georges, England had a succession of ' 
honest, decent, peaceful kings. 

All Queen Louise's portraits are remarkable for a 
scarf the lady invariably wears under her chin ; even 
her oldest portraits and busts exhibited in the Berlin 
Hohenzollern Museum, no matter whether the Queen is 
in court dress or ordinarily gowned, have this dis- 
tinction. 

This ornamented scarf was worn to conceal the 
marks of an operation for swelling of the glands. 

That is undoubtedly authentic, but it is also true 
that in this very spot the cancer that killed her, event- 
ually developed. I have this information from descend- 
ants of old-time royal servants in the employ of the 
late Emperor William, Louise's last sur^nving son. 

Tliat Emperor Frederick perished of cancer of the 
throat even Dr. Mackenzie had to admit. Therefore, 1 
if one may say so without offense, it would be in the i 
line of natural development if William II, supposing 
he inherited the malady, were attacked by it in the 
neighborhood of his throat. But it must not be for- | 
gotten that cancer is thouglit by some authorities to / 
be untransmissible. ] 

The only time that His Majesty's ear trouble was I 
mentioned in the palace was, as far as I can remem- i 
ber, at the death of Henry XI of Reuss-Gera. Thes ^ 
little one died of scarlet fever, we thought, and thej) 
Empress remarked : " I trust the Kaiser will not heai 
of the cause of death, for it always makes him uneasy.' J 

"Why, has His Majesty- not had scarlet fever.''" 1 
inquired. •. 

" Of course," said the Kaiserin rather hesitatingly,; 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 11 

" and in its most malignant form, too. How could you 
live here several years without hearing of it? " 

As Her Majesty's manner convinced me that it 
would not be agreeable to her to go into details, I 
curbed my curiosity until some time after I met Count 
Seckendorf, for many years chamberlain to the Em- 
press Frederick. 

" Your Ladyship did well not to press the point," 
he said, " for the Kaiser would be very angry if he 
heard of any such discussion. As a matter of fact, 
that scarlet-fever story is reserved for use in a con- 
tingency that has not yet arisen, I am happv ^ ■ ^ y.*' 

" You put mc on the rack. Count." 

" Others arc there already and dare not complain," 
replied the chamberlain, " on the rack of wViViC 
opinion, of the most cold-blooded insinuation and of 
reproof direct. 

" Do you remember," he continued, " when a cer- 
tain august person snubbed Emperor Frederick's Eng- 
lish physician because that gentleman had refused to 
take his cue from the seditious Bismarck and junker 
clique when reporting upon a disease that played such 
a part in a state tragedy, then on the boards? 
To-day, opposite views are trumps, and persons in- 
sisting that a specified malady involves the loss of the 
Crown of Prussia are publicly disowned and officially 
guillotined." 

" I know, I know, but the scarlet fever story? " 

"As I have had the honor of already intimating: if 
the condition of Frederick's successor becomes alarm- 
ing at any time in consequence of his ear trouble, 
your Ladyship will see it in all the official papers." 

And it will read after this style: 

" When His Majesty, as a child was stricken with 
carlet fever, his mother, the Empress Frederick, 
nsisted upon treating the patient after a custom pre- 
vailing in some parts of England. The feverish boy 
was subjected many times daily to ice-cold ablutions, 



12 SECRET LIFE OE THE KAISER 

while his body and bed linen were continually changed, 
in consequence of which an acute cold settled in the 
left ear, which has ever since irritated the youth and 
man." 

" Then," concluded the Count, " will follow a 
learned treatise showing that the Kaiser has water, 
not tumors, on the brain." 

There is, I repeat it, as yet no evidence to justify 
the worst suspicions regarding the Emperor's ear 
trouble, but the fact that the organ is regularly 
treated with antiseptics to arrest putrefaction indi- 
cates the presence of gangrenous inflammation. Quite 
frequently the Kaiser attends to this himself, and if 
he has had a particularly bad day, the physician on 
duty or the body physician operates on him. But 
in the course of years the Empress, likewise, has 
became an adept at bringing relief to her husband by 
these means ; she also handles an apparatus for pump- 
ing air out of the sick ear, or clearing its passages 
by blowing air through them. This instrument, which 
is fitted with a long rubber tube and a spiral trumpet, 
hangs at the side of the bedstead in their Majesties' 
joint chamber and a duplicate is in the Kaiser's own 
toilet-room while a third forms part of the traveling 
equipage. The bed-rooms on the yacht Hohenzollern 
and on the imperial salon trains are also fitted with 
ear-pumps. 

Harassed in this wise by maladies of the most seri- 
ous character, the Emperor could not be blamed for 
taking excessive precautions against contagion. That 
he lives the greater part of the year in the incon- 
veniently situated Neues Palais, which, moreover, will 
never be a thoroughly modern residence for reasons 
that will be explained in another chapter, is mainly 
due to its solitary position at the end of the town. 
At the Marble Palace, where the imperial couple used 
to spend the summer while waiting for William's 
patent of general and finally for the Crown, it was 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 13 

quite different. There they had neighbors, one of 
them the Hereditary Prince of Schoenburg, of the 
Guard Hussars. 

Coming down to breakfast one morning, the Kaiser 
learned that His Grace had died of diphtheria a few 
hours before. 

" Diphtheria," cried William, turning a shade paler 
than is his wont in the morning, — " there seems to 
be something unhealthy in the air hereabouts. Order 
the chamberlain on duty that my things must be 
packed and sent to Berlin at once." 

" But the residential quarters in the Schloss are far 
from finished," interposed Herr von Liebenau. 

" Never mind, there will be some corner where I can 
sleep and eat without running the risk of infection." 
And seeing that the adjutant still waited, he added, 
anticipating a question which etiquette forbade to be 
asked : " All my things — I am going to move." 

That settled. His Majesty quieted down, and when, 
shortly afterward, the Empress arrived, he simply 
said : " Dona, I am going to Berlin and this 
house will see me no more." Auguste Victoria was 
thunderstruck, but seeing the husband determined, 
she dared not question him. So their meal passed in 
silence while visions of domestic storms, of irreparable 
displeasure, even of a maitresse en titre, perhaps, 
chased through her Majesty's brain. And when half 
an hour later, I entered her room to ask if the valets 
might go to the bed-chamber and remove the Kaiser's 
clothes — I found my mistress in tears, bewailing a 
fate that was as yet a mystery. 

" Do you know why the Kaiser is going? " she said. 
I could not understand it at first. " Of course," I 
replied, " His Majesty has heard of the death across 
the way, and, being so near the Schoenburgs, he is 
afraid that diphtheria might break out in the palace." 
A sigh of relief escaped the imperial lady. She 
scarcely allowerl me to .finish. " Is the Hereditary 



14 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Prince dead? " she exclaimed, with almost a joyful ring 
in her voice. Then changing her attitude, she added: 
" Why have I not been informed of this ? I might 
have been spared an unhappy half-hour, and, besides, 
I should have sent my condolences to Princess Lucie." 

William was as good as his word; his state papers 
published that very day were dated " Schloss, Berlin," 
etc., and ever since the Marble Palace has ceased, as 
it were, to figure in contemporary history. 

The Kaiser was right in surmising that his thou- 
sand-windowed palace in the capital would afford him 
lodgings of some sort; but as his own apartments, as 
well as the majority of the other suites, were under- 
going alterations, he was obliged to make his quarters 
in the so-called von Kleist chambers, said to have been 
once inhabited by Princess Amalia's first lady-in-wait- 
ing, companion and confidante, the Baroness von Kleist. 
They are exceedingly beautiful, far more so than any 
of the gilded modern rooms that latter-day Berlin 
taste has furnished, yet at the same time lack even 
the most ordinary conveniences. 

I was at the Meiningen Villa, in the Thiergarten, 
on some business of Her Majesty's, when the Princess 
brought the news. " I have just come from my big 
brother," — she always speaks of the Kaiser thus, — 
" and what do you think? I found him installed in 
the Kleist apartments, which the White Lady is said 
to haunt." 

" ' I am glad Auguste had her baby ' I told the 
Kaiser," continued Princess Charlotte, " for as you 
know, von Kleist's child born in this apartment was 
disfigured by a terrible birth-mark on the nose, the 
broom of ' The Sweeper.' " 

"And what may that be. Your Royal Highness?" 

" The White Lady, of course, who used to announce 
her coming by vigorously sweeping the corridors. 
On that account, Frederick the Great dubbed her * the 
sweeper,' or, in his beloved French, La Balayeuse. 



;ecret life of the kaiser 15 

:," continued the Princess with a loud laugh, 
as if some hilarious bon mot had just seen the light 
in her luminous brain, — " that was, after all, a fitting 
designation, for, sub rosa, the White Lady of the 
Hohenzollems is no lady at all. I have just inspected 
her favorite abode, and, I assure you, there is neither 
a bath-tub nor a toilet to be found there.'* 

Although the Empress knew of the objectionable 
features of her husband's temporary abode, she insisted 
upon following William within twice twenty-four 
hours. But the Emperor, pretending to be very busy 
with his speech for the opening of the Reichstag on 
November 22, would not see her until the following 
day. Now everybody knows that speeches from the 
throne are composed by the Chancellor — ^hence it was 
clear that William had some other reason for absent- 
ing himself. As a matter of fact, he had heard that 
Fraulein von Gersdorff, dame of the Court, was suf- 
fering from a sore throat, and though, her quarters 
were not in the Marble Palace, but in the gentle- 
women's pavilion, situated in the park, he evidently 
feared that Her Majesty might have come in contact 
with her. And not until he was reassured by myself, 
did he emerge from his seculsion. 

After I had withdrawn, court marshal von Liebenau 
was summoned. 

" No more cases of diphtheria in Potsdam, I hope? " 
said the Kaiser, in his most imperious style. 

" None that I know of, Your Majesty." 

"That you know of? My dear sir, that means 
either that you are out of touch with your depart- 
ment or that cases of illness are secreted. At any 
rate, you will be good enough to telegraph to the 
Marble Palace that all persons of the suite, or in the 
royal service, who show any signs of throat trouble 
must be removed to a hospital at once, without the 
slightest delay. These are my strictest orders." 

One of the Empress's favorite wardrobewomen, Mrs. 



16 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISEB 

Schnase, fell a victim to William's relentless anxiety 
on that occasion. Not being on duty for several days, 
she had remained in Potsdam, and, by the court phy- 
sician's advice, had taken a perspiratory treatment 
to reduce a swelling of the glands, very common among 
certain classes in Germany, so that at 11 o'clock that 
night she was in the midst of a healthy sweat and 
sound sleep, when the major-domo awakened her to 
say that by " all-highest order " she must leave. 

Protest being out of the question, a four-wheeler 
was secured, and the shivering patient was rolled off 
to the nearest hospital through the wintry streets. 

" No room," reported the night-watch, when the 
driver summoned him. 

" But she is one of Her Majesty's personal at- 
tendants." 

Of course that made a difference, and, after some 
more discussion^ Mrs. Schnase was given a cot in the 
pauper's ward, third class, next to one in which a 
poor creature was just receiving extreme unction. 

The Queen's wardrobewoman was a healthy girl, 
and recovered not only from the horrors of her un- 
usual experience, but likewise from an illness she 
caught while exposed to the deadly exhalations of the 
sorry environment forced upon her. After a month 
or so, she was back at the Schloss ; but, daring to 
complain of the treatment that had been meted out to 
her, such biting sarcasm and contempt were heaped 
upon poor Schnase that she preferred to resign. 

Assuredly, no one blamed the Kaiser for postponing 
maneuvers when cholera was raging. On such and 
similar occasions all royal servants were treated to 
unsugared tea as the standing beverage, which caused 
not a little indignation in the palace, the flunkies and 
maids insisting that the Emperor should make the 
tea palatable, if he forbade them to drink anything 
else. 

JThe Empress, who faithfully copies all her hus- 



CCRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 11 

band's fads, either because she admires them or 
because she fears his displeasure, is as bad as he. Her 
Majesty frequently causes the discharge of servants 
for neglecting to report some trifling sickness in the 
family; and members of the royal household not 
living in the castle can enjoy a holiday at any 
time by simply furnishing a doctor's certificate stat- 
ing that somebody with whom they are domiciled 
in the city is ill. This applies to the Kaiser's 
adjutant-generals, as well as to the chamberlains, 
equerries, dames of the palace, chasseurs, coach- 
men, cooks, and scullions. More than once have 
I seen His Majesty abruptly start away from a 
person with whom he happened to be conversing at a 
reception or ball, leaving the unhappy lady or gentle- 
man speechless and crushed, because of an innocent 
admission that a son or a daughter, or perhaps an 
uncle, had the measles or a cold. At the very men- 
tion of the fact the warlord fled like a lion hearing 
a cock crow. 

Once I found Madame von Kotze in tears behind 
some shrub in the White Hall, while all around her 
dancing was going on. " What is the matter with 
Your Ladyship.? " I inquired; " can I be of service to 
you?" 

" No, thank you," she sobbed : " but to think that 
he said that to me ! " 

" Who is he, and what did he say.? " 
" The Kaiser, of course. When he heard that my 
boy was ill, he remarked, turning on his heel : ' How 
dare you come to my house under such circum- 
stances? ' " 

That happened at a time when Madame von Kotze 
prided herself upon her particularly friendly rela- 
tions with His Majesty. 

But the most absurd instances of the Kaiser's mania 
for precaution is afforded by the case of little Henry 
qf Reuss, already mentioned. As soon as his death 



18 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISI 

became known, William requested Her Majesty to 
have disinfected all the dresses that she had taken to 
Gera when attending the baptism of the Prince, several 
months before, although he knew at the time that His 
little Highness did not die of an infectious disease, 
as at first thought, but of a sort of scurvy. 



CHAPTER II 

My long years of service with the Kaiser as head of 
the Imperial Household have convinced me that his 
countless exhibitions of assumption, injustice, inci- 
vility, and brow-beating witnessed day after day, 
were not, as the saying is, second nature with him, 
but that, on the contrary, they reflected his true self, 
the real, unadulterated William. 

Taking interest in no one, but himself, and holding 
society (so far as it did not directly contribute to 
his momentary comfort) as of no account, the master 
sent by Providence into the world, " ready booted and 
spurred to ride," used all men and women as beasts 
of burden. 

An accident to my carriage pnce caused me to go 
into a Berlin restaurant not quite up to the standard 
of Court Society, and there I saw a man who ate just 
as the Kaiser eats. According to dress and general 
manner, this individual belonged to our landed gentry, 
— ^I subsequently learned that he owned several thou- 
sand acres in East Prussia. 

His wife and two children, a boy of six or seven, 
..and a girl of four or five, were with him at table. Yet 
he ordered dinner for one only — for himself — just as 
the Kaiser, if he was equipping a yacht, would order 
one life preserver, — the one he was going to wear. 

The dinner started off with soup, one plateful. And 
father ate all he could ladle up. Then he shoved the 
plate across to his wife, who managed to secure 
another half-spoonful, and in her turn pushed it before 
the children, who sopped up what was left with bread. 

There were similar proceedings on the Baron's part 

19 



20 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

— yes, indeed, he was a Prussian Baron — when the 
fish, roast, the vegetables, chicken and dessert came 
along. His Lordship ate his fill of every course, and 
the hungry three pairs of eyes, alternately fastened 
on his plate and mouth disturbed him no more than 
wasps do a bronze porker. 

When he got through the menu, he called for 
toothpicks and " cognacs to settle his stomach," — that 
his wife's and children's appetite was unsatisfied was 
nothing to him. 

Nor would it be anything to the Kaiser, if he were 
in the Baron's shoes. 

" The Kaiser used to boast that he was the biggest 
land owner in Prussia, — I am sure he is the biggest 
hog in Prussia or in the world," the late Queen Louise 
of Denmark once said to me. • 

When he went riding with his wife and some acci- 
dent to her mount or harness delayed her Majesty on 
the road, William proceeded to his destination in the 
most unconcerned fashion, taking his gentlemen, 
gendarmes and grooms with him ; neither did he lessen 
his pace to give his wife a chance to catch up with 
the party. 

As long as twenty years ago, one of the Kaiser's 
own physicians spoke to me as follows : 

" The Kaiser's speeches," he said, " portend an 
unmistakable craving for blood. His constant refer- 
ences to war, his incessant admonitions to the army 
that it must die for him, his abominable, oft-repeated 
summons to the soldiers to hold themselves in readi- 
ness to slaughter their parents, brothers, and sisters 
with gun, sabre, or lance, show that he is mad for 
blood. 

" Woe to the nations if the Kaiser ever gets the 
chance to practice what he talks so earnestly, persist- 
ently and with such evident gusto. 

" I predict that he will not stop at making war 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER ^1 

where other great captains stopped, but that, on the 
contrary, he will carry war into civilian life. He 
doesn't hesitate to confess that he is forever think- 
ing up new horrors of war and he will want to see 
these hellish concoctions and inventions at work de- 
stroying human life. 

"If he succeeds in launching 'The Day' (and he 
will launch it as soon as he thinks the proposition a 
safe one for himself) women and children and old men 
will be fair game for him as well as the men of the 
armies and navies. 

" And if he should encounter trouble at home, he 
will not hesitate to shed the blood of our own people 
in rivers. His reference to the killing of parents, 
mothers and sisters, which the soldiers must perform 
if he says the word, clearly foreshadows that." 

Doubtless the telegrams which I used to read to 
the Empress, following in the wake of all imperial 
hunting excursions, and announcing the number orf 
game killed, were very gratifying from a sportsman's 
standpoint; but, considering that' William's reign 
yielded not a sfngle act of pardon, or of human kind- 
ness, these records of blood, by William, are signifi- 
cant. It is one thing to measure strength and wits 
and the velocity of one's own, or one's horse's legs, 
with the beasts of the forest, as the late Theodore 
Roosevelt did, and another to butcher game, released 
from the pens, by the hundred as the Kaiser used 
to do. 

Louis, the Mad King of Bavaria, was half a Hohen- 
zollern and he, too, was forever a-thirst for blood. 

During the last five or six years of his life, 
William's cousin used to vary monotony of inventing 
new building projects by studying minute accounts of 
battles and other gory happenings, and afterward, 
his brain aflame with visions of blood, he would fall 
upon any servant near to strangle, bite, cut off his 



22 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

ear, or otherwise maim him. The Bavarians are still 
paying pensions to royal servants who lost a nose, 
an eye, a leg or the use of other limbs, by their mas- 
ter's cruelty. 

I heard the Emperor boast when he had killed his 
fifty-thousandth head of game : " When I think of 
the number of animals in my forests," he said, " I feel 
like Frederick the Great at Kolin when he shouted to 
his squadrons: 'Dogs, would ye live forever?' If a 
King cannot go to war, he must be content with prac- 
tising in the forest. It keeps one in fighting trim, 
anyhow." 

How the Emperor felt about signing death war- 
rants is easy to judge. I know that he signed every- 
one submitted to him, and that in all writs of execu- 
tion issued since Emperor Frederick's demise, there 
occurred the phrase: "His Majesty having refused 
to interfere, the delinquent is to die by the sword," 
etc. 

Like most selfish persons, William is hard-hearted, 
and never pardons anybody, save duelists or officers 
punished for exceeding their authority. He approvies 
of insane big-headedness even in others. Previous to 
the William the First celebration, many thousand 
petitions arrived in the Kaiser's mail, but His Majesty 
being busy with the preparations for " Willehalm," 
refused even to see the extracts and recommendations 
which the Minister of Justice had prepared. 

" I have no time for miscreants," he said to Lu- 
canus : " Let a few men suffering for defending their 
honor, sword or pistol in hand, be picked out and I will 
set them free. As for the rest, they must take their 
medicine." 

In the matter of William's claim of Divine inspira- 
tion, I might relate hundreds of anecdotes showing 
that he imagines he holds extraordinary relations with 
the Almighty. This, moreover, was proved by his 
tirades to his soldiers during the war in which he 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 23 

condescendingly enlisted God as a private in the Ger- 
man army. 

I recall how in conformity with his ideas of omnip- 
otence, the Kaiser made his brother-in-law, Adolph, 
regent for the demented Prince of Lippe. " I gave 
him his Crown; woe to him who touches it," he told 
everybody. Nevertheless that cheap and nasty 
bauble was touched and Adolph got the sack! 

I remember how on another occasion, after chasing 
from a parade to wrangle with a servant, His Majesty 
sat down to dedicate a number of Bibles for the new 
Berlin garrison church, inscribing them as follows: 

" I will walk among you and will be your God and you 
shall be my people," 

"Ye shall walk in all the ways which I have com- 
manded you." 

" Without me you can do nothing." He signed 
each sentence " Wilhelm, Imperator, Rex," and 
omitted quotation marks ; as well as book, chapter and 
verse. 

" They shall stand by themselves as expressions of 
my royal will," he said to Her Majesty. 

That the Kaiser's egotism leads him to regard all 
state resources as his personal property even to the 
point of using state funds for his personal use, will 
presently be shown. 

Everything is his. " My army," " my Heligoland," 
" my navy," " my port," " my fortress," " my funds " 
(meaning the state treasury), "my minister of war," 
" my chancellor," are expressions we hear as often as 
" my horse," " my boys," or " my speech." He 
always places an egotistical emphasis on the " my." 

I recall one typical instance when he suddenly re- 
turned from his Northland trip. An officer whose 
name I have forgotten was invited to second break- 
fast. " Bully chap, this Lieutenant," said William to 
Her Majesty across the table, " but he came near 
ruining one of my torpedo-boats in trying to catch 



24 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

up with my Hoherizollern on the way from Maeraak 
to Bergen. If he damages another of my vessels, he 
will have to pay for her." 

There was much excitement in the Royal Houshold 
after the first " divine-appointment " speech at Cob- 
lenz, and Prince Henry's declaration of self-abase- 
ment : " I will carry forth the evangelium of Your Ma- 
jesty's sacred person; I will preach it to those who 
want to hear it and also to^ those who don't want to 
hear it." 

If this was not progressive big-headedness, it 
would have been idle mockery; yet no one acquainted 
with William and his ways will consider the alternative 
for a moment. On the contrary, it is a well-authenti- 
cated fact that His Majesty took Vespasian's death- 
bed jest — Methinks I am becoming a god — in bloody 
earnest from the very beginning of his reign. 

In his every-day speech, as well as in public ad- 
dresses, he claimed to be " all-seeing." Thus he warned 
the marines at Kiel to behave when visiting foreign 
countries, as his " eye was watching them, whether 
at home or abroad, by day or by night." 

" More wonders," said one of the Emperor's sisters : 
" I suppose he will next invite the moon to sleep with 
him, like a certain Roman Emperor, who regarded 
himself a god." 

The Kaiser's divine-appointment speech at Coblenz, 
was a fitting resume of his claim as God's viceroy, 
repeated over and over again since the direful day of 
his assumption of power over the German people, 
when, in a " general order," he pronounced the 
astounding notion that he was " accountable for the 
army's honor and success to his grandfather," who 
was dead one hundred days. 

That the " Hohenzollerns took their Crown from 
God's altar," and that " they are responsible to no 
one but the Almighty," — how often did I hear this 
story in the Imperial Household from the lips of the 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 25 

Kaiser, the Kaiserin, and all the Pdnces and kin — 
even the servants believed it and the mass of the Ger- 
man people. How easy would be its denial upon 
proofs smouldering in royal Prussian archieves ! 

The only really new thing in the early Coblenz 
utterances is the statement that the Kaiser's grand- 
father was " born a king, God's chosen instrument," 
while as a matter of fact the first William's kingship 
depended upon his predecessor's inability to have an 
heir. 

The mad Frederick William died without issue, 
and " Grapeshot Billy," as William I was styled by 
his loving Prussians then, mounted the throne. 

As for Prince Henry's famous Kiel speech (this is 
the same Prince Henry who came to America on a 
propaganda junket and was feted and dined by Ameri- 
can society) the criticisms upbraiding the amiable 
but stupid Henry for what he said are as little justi- 
fied as would be condemnation of the phonograph for 
a false note sung into one of Mr. Edison's machines 
by a dime-museum tenor. 

I know His Royal Highness well, and this very 
knowledge convinces me that the expression " the 
evangelium of ,Your Majesty's sacred person " did 
not originate with him. " Sacred person," by the way, 
is a phrase that occurs frequently in the records of 
the descendants of the mad Juana of Spain, the 
Roman-German Emperors Charles V and Rudolph II. 
Indeed, the anecdote dealing with the latter saj^s that 
he once admonished his physician, who was trying to 
locate the imperial patient's stomach under the quilt, 
by the thundering words : " Stop, there's the holy 
Roman belly." 

To return to Prince Henry he has never originated 
anything. A careless, unlettered youth, he spent his 
first years of manhood as riotously as his slender allow- 
ance permitted. To save him from himself, he was 
married, at the age of twenty-six, to his cousin Irene^ 



26 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

an amiable woman, of domestic habits, but without an 
ounce of esprit. " Henry's father," the late Princess 
of Hohenlohe once said, " was just such a man, 
but fortunately he had a wife that prodded him on 
and forced him to acquire knowledge and assume at 
least a semblance of interest in literature and the fine 
arts." 

German " Kultur " was the world's most colossal 
fraud. There was no culture in the Imperial family 
— the Hohenzollerns were and are gross, vulgar and 
depraved. 

As to the relations between the royal brothers, they 
were never hearty and frequently strained. Princess 
Irene and my mistress disliked each other, and the 
men took their wives' part. As a subordinate officer, 
however. His Royal Highness always did his very ut- 
most to please the Emperor. 

While in the family circle the Kaiser was generally 
spoken of as " big brother," " big cousin," and so 
forth, Henry never failed to designate and address him 
as " Lord of the Sea," or " High Admiral." He con- 
sulted him about the merest details concernig his com- 
mand, and professed to be thoroughly happy only 
when the Kaiser approved his conduct as a naval 
officer. 

Yet the Naval General Staff steadfastly refused to 
give Prince Henry a command during the war, reduc- 
ing him to the rank of an arm-chair admiral. Instead 
of directing battles, as he had threatened to do in 
pre-war days, Henry had to be content with repeating 
the stories of his spy-craft in Britain and the United 
States. Nowadays he is occasionally heard from, 
pleading for " big brother's babylike innocence." 

Quite often I heard Prince Henry say to William: 
" Do not forget about that speech of mine for the 
Marine Club dinner," or, "If you cannot come" (to 
this or that opening, or naval exercise), "be sure to 
send me the speech. You can talk it over the tele- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 27 

phone and I will have a stenographer at the other 
end to take it down, word for word." 

The Kaiser, too, was heard to say once or twice: 
" Now I shall have to telephone the speech Prince 
Henry is expected tx) deliver to-morrow. To be the 
intellectual giant of one's family has its drawbacks." 

There lived not a man or woman at court who did 
not intuitively feel that Prince Henry's most famous 
speech was conceived and dictated by the person ad- 
dressed from the opening words : " Exalted Emperor. 
Puissant King and Master, Illustrious Brother," to 
the closing phrase : " Our sublime, mighty, beloved 
Kaiser, King and Lord for all times, for ever and 
ever — hurrah,- hurrah, hurrah ! " 

William wrote it word for word, as he did a dozen 
other tirade^ inflicted by his brother upon festive and 
official gatherings, I could name people of high stand- 
ing who saw the manuscript. 

In proclaiming his " mission " of chief arbiter of 
the world as an evangeliura, as a revelation of the 
grace of God to fallen man through him, the anointed 
mediator, the Kaiser followed a practice established 
by most of the champions of big-headedness, past and 
present. 

But reflecting on William's behavior after his fall, 
I am sure he was posing — posing as a " God " some- 
times, as a mad-man at others. 

When a week or ten days ago Countess Brockdorff, 
the ex-Kaiserin's chief servant returned from Holland, 
she told me that "Majesty" (she insisted upon 
according him the title) was " working at his defense." 
If in that document William is true to himself, there 
will be much rot about " divine advice " and " heavenly 
directions " tendered him " while on his devout knees." 

And nothing excited William, Prince of poseurs, 
quite as much as the thought that, of his 70,000,000 
of Germans, one or another refused to take him at 
the exaggerated valuation he put on himself. 



28 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Here follows a story told by General von Scholl, 
William's boon companion on his hunting trips. 

" It happened in Rominton," said Scholl, " and the 
chase had come off to His Majesty's entire satisfac- 
tion, which means everybody else's complete disappoint- 
ment. That is to say: By the chief forester's trickery 
all the game was driven before the Emperor's gun, 
while the rest of us got nothing but a few miserable 
hares or rabbits to massacre. Indeed, the Kaiser was 
so elated with his success as a pig sticker and deer 
butcher that he indulged in good-natured persiflage — a 
rare thing with him. Consequently all present had 
visions of plenty of champagne and imported cigars in 
the evening, for, as you know, when he has had a bad 
day's shooting he goes to bed as soon as he comes home, 
condemning his friends and guests to a diet of Berlin 
beer and evil smelling cabbage-leave cigars, the rankest 
in all Christendom. 

" As we were walking toward the carriages, young 
Fuchs, the underhuntsman, came to me and whispered : 

" ' Does your Excellency advise me to ask His 
Majesty now? ' 

" * Go ahead, my boy,' I answered, ' if he doesn't 
grant it now, he never will.' Fuchs referred to a boon 
he desired, namely, a pardon for his old uncle under- 
going imprisonment for insult to Majesty. 

" His case was one of the rankest that ever came 
to my notice. Fuchs' relative, it seems, is a well-to-do' 
Pomeranian farmer. During the maneuvers the King's 
horses trampled down the old man's corn. He sued the 
government and lost. When he threatened to appeal, 
the state's attorney tried to dissuade him, pointing out 
that he should feel honored rather, seeing that the 
Kaiser himself had commanded the troops that de- 
stroyed his crops. 

" * The Kaiser,' said the old farmer savagely, 



At any rate," continued the General, " old Fuchs 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 29 

simply used a figure of vulgar speech, as all of us are 
liable to do under provocation, but the public prose- 
cutor hailed the incident as a means for bringing his 
ignoble carcass to ' all highest ' notice. Forthwith he 
clapped the farmer in jail and had him tried for lese 
Majesty. 

" Well, seeing that WilHam was in such exceptionally 
good humor, the horizon ablaze with popping corks and 
fiddlesticks, the underhuntsman took heart and asked 
the Kaiser to pardon his old uncle. 

" A gentleman of our party had his eye on William 
while Fuchs pleaded his case. He says the Emperor 
alternately turned red, white and green in the face 
when he answered the request. 

" ' I am astonished beyond words at your audacity. 
You ask for a boon — it's yours ! I hereby promise you 
that I will forget the act of damnable hardihood you 
have been guilty of. You shall not be punished for 
asking the liberation of a traitor. Do you know,' he 
added, ' what they did with fellows like you in olden 
times .^ They might deem themselves lucky if they were 
not disemboweled or broken on the wheel.' 

" After that the Kaiser paused and called to the rest 
of the company to listen. * Let me state here, once and 
for all, that under certain conditions I may feel inclined 
to pardon even a common murderer, but to my mind the 
man who insults a crowned head is ten times worse than 
a murderer. Pardon him I never will.' 

" * As to Fuchs' case, his relative is undergoing most 
inadequate punishment for the grossest of crimes, seeing 
that his vile tongue insulted God's anointed, the head 
of the German nation. May he rot in prison.' " 

Some years ago when the Kaiser was riding in state 
through the streets of Berlin to attend the unveiling of 
one of the lifesized puppets lining the Avenue of Victory 
and giving palpitations of disgust to every lover of art, 
a poor old lady dropped an envelope into the royal 
carriage. 



80 SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 

The adjutant, sitting to William's left, picked up 
the missive and, with a respectful bow, held it out in 
his hand not daring to presume whether the letter 
should be accepted or not. 

The Kaiser grabbed the envelope with a scowl. Then, 
without reading even the address, flung it into the 
street and rubbed his gloved hand over his coat, as if 
anxious to remove a stain. 

He cursed the old woman who had the " effrontery to 
assault him with her dirty letter " all the way down to 
the place of unveiling and, arrived there, summoned the 
Chief of Police. 

" Fine order you keep," he roared at the official. 
^^ On the way here another hussy bombarded me with 
her filthy missives. Unfortunately, I kicked the rag 
out of the carriage, otherwise the old strumpet's name 
might have been ascertained for the prosecuting at- 
torney." 

I beg the reader's pardon for the language used, it's 
the " all-highest," — duly expurgated. 

I shall never forget the excitement created at the 
palace one day when one of the Kaiser's brutal orders 
to " shoot beggars on sight " almost cost the life of a 
Vanderbilt. 

This was in the days before the war when American 
millionaires thought it quite respectable to visit the 
Kaiser — the days before his exposure as the arch- 
conspirator against decency and civilization. 

Vanderbilt, it appeared, had driven to the castle over 
the royal highway, and the coach was about to enter 
one of the outer gates, when the sentinel stationed there, 
stopped the horses and demanded a card of admission. 

" This is His Majesty's friend," said Jacques 
Hartog, Mr. Vanderbilt's courier, with an air of 
magnificent assurance, but the soldier only stared the 
harder. 

" Your pass," repeated the infantryman. 

^' You don't understand things. This is Ml^ V&nfler- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 31 

bilt, the American millionaire ! " Hartog was pleading 
now. 

As the word " American " struck the sentinel's long 
ears, he raised his gun, for his lieutenant had taught 
him that the United States is " one of those confounded 
republics," totally devoid of a king, or princes, or even 
a respectable standing army. 

" Driver," he commanded, in his most pompous voice, 
and apparently unmindful of Hartog's very existence, 
" Driver, right about face, forward march ! March, I 
say, and march, a third time, or I will shoot 1 " 

The guardsman kept his gun leveled on the intruders 
until the coach vanished behind a cloud of fine white 
dust, and Heaven knows what would have happened if 
Hartog, who has a well-established reputation for pug- 
naciousness and obstinacy, had endeavored to run the 
blockade in order to please his rich patron; for these 
sentinels carried sharp cartridges, and if they fired — 
and they often did so on windy provocation — they fired 
to kill. 

I cannot remember now whether the public honoring 
by the Emperor of a sentinel, who, while on duty, shot 
down some poor wretch, happened previously to Mr. 
Vanderbilt's unsuccessful attempt to visit the royal 
domain, or not. In that case. His Majesty called the 
offender to the front, shook him by the hand, and 
assured him of his royal grace, saying : " I am proud 
to commend you as an obedient and courageous soldier ; 
such devotion as yours will always meet with my highest 
approval," or words to that effect. 

But I do know that the incident was earnestly dis- 
cussed in the imperial family and the castle about a 
month later, after the Emperor had delivered another 
famous speech at the swearing-in of the Potsdam 
recruits. 

There are two versions of that address already men- 
tioned in passing. The one which the majority of news- 
papers printed at the time reads : 



B2 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

" Children of my guard, you are now my soldiers, — 
mine, body and soul ! You have sworn to obey all my 
commands ; you must follow my rules and my advice 
without grumbling. It means that, from this day on, 
you must know but one enemy, and that enemy is my 
enemy. And if I command you some day to fire upon 
your own kith and kin, remember our oath ! " 

That version is terrible enough; but compared with 
the original draft of the speech, which I happen to have 
seen on the Kaiser's desk, the words spoken sound 
almost tame. 

There it was, in William's tall, forcibly-rounded 
hand : 

" Recruits ! Remember that the German army must 
be as ready to fight enemies that arise in our midst, 
as foreign foes. To-day,' disbelief and malcontented- 
ness are rampant in the Fatherland to a heretofore 
unheard of degree; consequently, I may call upon you 
at any time to shoot down and strike to the ground your 
father and mother, sisters and brothers. My orders in 
that respect must be executed cheerfully and without 
grumbling like any other command I may issue. You 
must do your duty, no matter what your hearts' dic- 
tates are. And now go home and attend to your new 
duties." 

I came upon this document quite accidentally, the 
Empress having ordered me to fetch from the desk in 
the Kaiser's study the calendar whereon His Majesty's 
engagements are registered, and the precious composi- 
tion was written on blank spaces between the dates I 
had to examine. 

" Monstrous ! " I thought, reading over for the 
second time what William had the folly to indict and 
not wit enough to keep to himself; my heart trembled 
with anxiety for both country and Emperor. And to 
think that he memorized this murderous self-apotheosis 
within earshot of his wife, and with his innocent babies 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 33 

sleeping above ! And I — ^involuntary keeper of a state 
secret ! 

It troubled me a good deal during the night, but next 
morning's news quickly took the load off my shoulders, 
for Her Majesty remarked that the Kaiser was much 
pleased with the impression his speech had produced, — 
that of striking terror into the hearts of SociaHsts and 
others opposed to the imperial will. 

"But does not Your Majesty fear misinterpretation 
on the part of overzealous men ? " I asked ; " the papers 
are filled with reports about brutalities in the army, and 
about the overbearing conduct of the military at all 
times. At the unveiling of the Schloss Fountain in 
Berlin, I even heard a rumor that Vanderbilt came near 
being shot while driving toward the Neues Palais." 

That was a lighted matched into a powder-barrel! 
Her Majesty caused inquiries to be made at once, and 
meanwhile got all her ladies together to discuss the 
exigencies of the case. Of course, in their opinion, it 
would not matter much if an ordinary mortal is killed 
by a sentinel ; but " the richest man in the world ! " — 
that was another thing. Would, in such a contingency, 
"the United States declare war against Germany?" 

The Countesses Bassewitz and Brockdorff wished it 
would, for they have relatives in the navy ; but when I 
suggested that the Yankees might prefer to take it out 
of German commerce. Her Majesty became thoughtful. 

"I have heard the Kaiser remark that Vanderbilt 
could cripple the finances of the entire universe," she 
said ; " if that sentinel had shot him, his brothers and 
heirs might drive our good Miquel to suicide." 

I can add but little to the statements already made 
concerning the Kaiser's health. His ear trouble is in- 
creasing and Her Majesty, who is fond of fresh air as 
was Queen Victoria, was much concerned about the foul 
atmosphere that gathered constantly in the Kaiser's 
study and dressing-room, or wherever he stayed in- 



34f SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

doors for any length of time. The belief that this local 
disease is a cancerous growth received a new impetus 
from the fact that the late Grand Duke of Baden's 
sufferings were diagnosed as cancer. His Royal High- 
ness was the husband of a Prussian Princess, grand- 
daughter of Queen Louise and sister of the late Fred- 
erick III, the Kaiser's sire. Both Queen Louise and 
Frederick died of cancer, and the physicians hold that 
the Grand Duchess Louise transmitted the curse to her 
husband, as another Prussian Princess, more directly, 
carried insanity into the House of Wittelsbach. 

The Kaiser is an epileptic, but as warnings, in the 
shape of certain peculiar sensations, usuall3' preceded 
his spells, it has been possible to restrict the knowledge 
of his unroyal affliction to his family circle, the highest 
officials and to members of the household. 

As long ago as the midsummer of 1891, the Kaiser 
was found in his dressing-room at the Neues Palais, 
lying unconscious across a fallen arm-chair, which he 
had knocked down in toppling over. The chambermaid 
Amelia discovered her master when, receiving no answer 
to repeated knocks she entered the room in pursuit of 
her duties. You can imagine the hubbub that ensued. 
The girl, not satisfied with alarming the men servants, 
brought all the women, from Empress to scullion, to the 
scene by her lamentations. 

At first the cry went forth that his Majesty had been 
murdered; simultaneously the theory of suicide was 
advanced, and when, finally, the doctors arrived, they 
found two of the wardrobemen engaged in pouring 
cognac down the Kaiser's throat. 

Cognac of the twenty-five marks a bottle brand is 
always kept in the Emperor's private rooms to liven 
him up when he feels faint. The servants thought they 
were doing the correct thing and were inconsolable on 
hearing of the danger involved by such heroic treat- 
ment. However, as at the same time they had opened 
the Kaiser's locked teeth and pulled his tongue into 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 35 

place, they had done something to relieve the poor 
man. 

The other attack happened at the Berlin Schloss, 
also in the Kaiser's own chamber and in the presence 
of his wardrobemen. The attending physical circum- 
stances were the same, and so was, curiously enough, 
the explanation to the household by court marshal 
Eulenburg. 

" His Majesty has a peculiar way of throwing him-" 
self backward into an armchair," he said. " He throws 
himself into a chair with full force, and it is not to 
be wondered at that a chair breaks down under him 
occasionally." 

The Emperor himself, after each stroke, talked at 
table of the d — d worm-eaten chairs that were consid- 
ered good enough to be placed in his chamber. The 
idea that any court marshal would assign infirm pieces 
of furniture to William-the-Spendthrift is almost too 
preposterous for mention. 

I am told the Kaiser's malady has, of late, taken a 
more aggravated form, the premonitory sensations hav- 
ing ceased. The falling-sickness comes upon him sud- 
denly and, as in the two instances noted, he lapses into 
insensibility without a moment's notice when grand mal 
takes hold of him. He is, therefore, in more imminent 
danger, on account of the falls peculiar to the disease, 
than before, and as a precautionary measure all porce- 
lain vases with cut flowers were long ago removed from 
his rooms. 



CHAPTER III 

I HAVE no personal end in view with these revelations; 
no excuses are offered for this narrative of court life 
in Germany as I have seen it, other than to give the 
world the truth about the Hohenzollerns. 

If in part it borders on the unexpected, by upsetting 
established notions, and again explains certain things 
which have become history from a standpoint totally 
different from the one popularly accepted and believed, 
let the reader remember that truth is stranger than 
fiction, and that history is but a lie, to borrow a phrase 
from the Duchess of Orleans, the sister-in-law of Louis 
XV, who exclaimed, on hearing the false report that 
Frederick the Great was marching upon Versailles after 
Rossbach : " So much the better, I shall at last see a 
king." 

A lady of title and position, after losing my fortune, 
I accepted their Majesties' command to join the ranks 
of a retinue already noted for high-sounding names, 
and by royal warrant was appointed chief of the 
imperial household, or lady major-domo. 

For many years I was what " the first gentleman of 
Europe " cleverly characterized " a maid aiding the 
languor of an easy party in a royal box at the play; 
one that goes to the theater, to concerts and oratorios 
gratis, and has physicians without fees and medicine 
without druggists' bills." 

As Maitresse de Maison I had a ticklish post, that 
bound me closely to their Majesties' heels, inasmuch as 
the care of the " all-highest " persons was giyen into my 
hands. 

The German court from the day I entered it was and 
always has been vulgar, coarse and as I shall later 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 37 

prove — depraved. It had no semblance of " Kultur " ; 
it was in fact ignorant, superficial and, " behind the 
scenes," most disgusting. The Kaiser is neither a 
reader nor a student, but a mere pretender of knowl- 
edge. * 

After a quarrel with William, the Princess of Mein- 
ingen once called her big brother " the great charlatan " 
and his cronies the " little ones whom he continuously 
outtricks." 

Love of risque stories is a HohenzoUern failing. 
Contemporary writers agree that Frederick the Great 
shunned woman's society because it obliged him to 
bridle his tongue and observe the ordinary decencies 
of life ; the " romantic " Frederick William IV was a 
trafficker in classical and modern pornographic litera- 
ture, and the present Kaiser's grossness of speech was 
notorious enough to find an echo in the imperial 
nursery. 

Apropos of this, a funny thing happened some years 
ago when Major von Falkenhayn, then governor of the 
older princes, complained to His Majesty that his first- 
born constantly used a very nasty word against his 
brothers and playmates. 

" The devil ! " cried the Kaiser, " he must be broken of 

that; but where did the little (the very nasty 

phrase complained of) hear that expression? " 

Probably from his imperial and royal father. It will 
be remembered that poor " Nickey," the late Czar of 
Russia, complained in the early part of the Great War 
that William often shocked him by his nasty tongue. 
At one time when he was quarrelling with his quondam 
ally, the King of Bulgaria, he applied to him an epithet, 
occasionally, very occasionally, heard in the slums of 
great towns, I understand — and this filthy William 
HohenzoUern shouted it all over the banqueting hall. 

So far " Nickey," but didn't " Ferdi " get even with 
the Kaiser ? 

I have nothing to support my theory, but I do think 



38 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

that the " Bulgarski " got well paid for deserting 
William at the critical moment. It will come out 
sooner or later. In the meanwhile I want to put this, 
my most personal belief, on record. 

William will talk for weeks about a vulgar experience, 
and neither his friends nor the dignitaries of state with 
whom he came in contact were spared the recital, includ- 
ing disgusting details. Indeed, three-quarters of the 
time when the public imagined William to be wrestling 
with problems of the day he sat on the billiard table, 
with his adjutants and the chief members of his military 
and civil households standing around smoking ciga- 
rettes and telling stories and listening to tales affect- 
ing personages of the court and society here and 
abroad. 

And while this lascivious tattle was carried on Her 
Majesty lounged, perchance, in the Cup Room, mag- 
nificently gowned, knitting shapeless little woolen caps 
for orphan asylums, and talking religion and cheap 
charity schemes. 

What contrasts ! What dissimulation ! I often 
thought to myself when being in attendance upon Her 
Majesty, the echo of sneering allusions to a friend's 
or acquaintance's wife or daughter wafted past me 
through the door of the billiard-room, left ajar by some 
lackey with his tablet, or opened by the Kaiserin's 
order that she may feast her eyes on the husband she 
loved so well. 

The head of the nation, whose " unceasing industry " 
was the talk of the continent, vainly trying to kill time 
with buffoonery ; the sovereign lady, " mother of the 
poor,"^working penny caps in a gown the cost of which 
would keep for ten years the poor boy or girl for whom 
the kitted thing is intended, and assure the little one 
a splendid education. 

It was a saying at court : " Give the Kaiser an up- 
to-date rendering of the * Merry Jests of King Louis 
XI,' and you will receive a standing invitation to accom.- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 39 

pany him on his Northland trips ; tell him something 
more indelicate than the * Tattle of the Nuns of Poissy,' 
and he will book you for an ambassadorship ; " and that 
is no exaggeration, as will be seen in v/hat I shall later 
reveal about William's boon companions and their 
scandalous escapades. 

The Kaiser's inclination for the ludicrous even in- 
truded itself into "business of state "; for, as he con- 
siders his ministers but royal servants of high degree, 
so were court functions regarded by him as quasi aifairs 
of government. 

The house regulations provided that a list of invited 
persons be presented to the Empress and her ladies 
ea.rly every morning, so that they could dress accord- 
ingly. My experience showed that it would never do 
to wear anything but one's second-best bib and tucker 
at table, whether the bulletin announced a brace of 
nobodies or half a dozen ministers and ambassadors 
for at the last moment His Majesty might bring in 
the Chancellor, some sovereign or- prince traveling in- 
cognito, or a whole host of fine-looking young officers 
whom he came across on one of his rides or outings or 
who happened to report at the palace about meal-time. 

His habit of issuing these invitations, however, did 
not necessarily imply that William was a hospitable 
man; maybe he did not care a snap of his fingers for 
the individuals dragged to the gilded chair of ennui by 
" all-highest command " ; he invited these gentlemen 
merely because they promised diversion, either by reason 
of their personality, or by information or gossip in 
their possession — anything to escape the monotony of 
daily surroundings, was the Kaiser's continuous prayer. 
If his wife and her ladies were embarrassed, so much 
the worse for them. 

" Three weeks' table duty suffice to ruin anyone's 
digestion," was a saying at court, and, it might be 
added, was enough to spoil one's savoir-vivre too. In 
the fashippable restaurant at the Hotel de Rome, ia 



40 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Berlin a little old man was pointed out to me by a 
friend from the provinces, " I am astonished," said my 
escort, " that they allow so ill-mannered a person in 
this place." 

" You mean the white-haired and beribboned gentle- 
man in the corner?" 

" The same, who swings his toothpick so furiously." 

" Why, it is Count , chamberlain to the 

Empress." 

" Really ! And who may be the gentleman with him 
who combs his long mutton-chop whiskers over his soup- 
plate? " 

" That is Minister von Puttkamer." 

" But they behave like pigs. Do they learn that at 
the royal table ? " 

"Nonsense; in the presence of their Majesties they 
are under such awful restraint, that, off duty, they let 
themselves loose, like boys escaped from boarding-school 
drink out of their saucers and wipe their mouths on 
their sleeves." 

The guests and attendants at table are in gala or 
demi toilet, most of the younger officers being as tightly 
corseted as the ladies, while all the men wear the nar- 
rowest of uniforms, that scarcely allow them to breathe. 
Add to this feeling of physical distress the overpower- 
ing anxiety of preparing for the supreme moment when 
the Kaiser or the Kaiserin shall address one of them, 
or give the signal for laughter, and it will be obvious 
at once that taking potluck with Prussian royalty 
had its drawbacks. 

But the most miserable person of the glittering as- 
semblage was she who wears the costliest gown, the 
biggest diamonds. At meal-time the Kaiser chose to 
make a display of his conversational powers or wit and 
Auguste Victoria knew only too well that she cannot 
rival the one, and that the other is out of her reach. 
So she sat quietly, addressing little nothings to her 
ladies in an undertone from time to time, while paia^ 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 41 

fully alert, that none of His Majesty's jokes and 
inuendoes escape her. 

William seldom spoke to his wife directly except to 
say that he liked or disliked her costume; and if she 
asked questions, he answered in a tone that forbade 
further conversation ; quite frequently he did not reply 
at all, turning his left ear toward the Empress and 
affecting not to hear her. 

At such moments, when pride and love raged In her 
bosom, we all felt deeply for Her Majesty. Sometimes 
she appeared ready to cry in the face of everybody; 
but the woman in her forever gave way to the Queen, 
and so she swallowed her mortification, sat still and 
smiled, her little gray eyes languidly fixed on the hus- 
band so eager to shine as a humorist. 

Ah, the sorry attempts at jesting that guests at the 
royal board must endure ! By reeling off any absurdity 
that came into his head, the Kaiser tried to " put life 
into the company " as he called it, and his remarks, 
usually addressed to one of the adjutants, provoked 
peals of laughter as a matter of course, as soon as the 
author gave the cue for hilarity by accentuating the end 
of his speech with a roar. 

" Why is my big brother like ' Life ' in a foreign 
country? " asked Prince Henry of a small circle of 
sympathizing relatives during a visit of our court in 
Kiel. 

All the highnesses, royal and otherwise, gave it up. 

" Because," quoth Henry, " he is always sure of 
raising a laugh." " Life " has a reputation of being 
funny, and, even where English is not understood, is 
applauded indiscriminately. 

The New York periodical was the universal favorite 
with German royality. I remember the Kaiser's wrath 
when in September, 1914, the first number of " Life," 
making disrespectful reference to his august Majesty, 
strayed onto his library table. William was surprised 
put of his boots. 



42 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

" I command the postmaster general," he shouted 
into the phone. 

And when that dignitary respectfully responded, he 
demanded to know whether the post office department 
was asleep. " You had the effrontery to pass that dirty 
rag ' Life ' through my mails," he bawled, " if that 
happens again it will mean your resignation." 

And William hung up the receiver with a bang. 

Supper at court was no more entertaining than the 
midday meal : the same stiff-necked formality, the same 
strained after-effect ; the Kaiser endeavoring to be his 
own merry-Andrew, the rest of the company dull for 
the most part. 

As for the Empress, she remained as impassive as 
ever, smiling in her subdued manner; only her corsage 
was considerably lower, and she wore an extra handful 
or two of jewels. An extreme decollete is Her Ma- 
jesty's strong point; but, despite allurements of toilet 
and the assiduity with which her charms were set 
off, William could not be induced to remain in his 
wife's presence a minute longer than courtesy de- 
manded. 

As soon as coffee was served, the Emperor took him- 
self off with his men friends and attendants and, as 
stated, repaired to the billiard-room, where he sat for 
hours, with one leg on the table, swinging the other to 
and fro, while his adjutants and guests entertained him 
with imitations of music-hall and circus people, small 
talk, and droll stories of the coarsest grain, reeking with 
the fumes of the barrack-mess. 

That in the feverish hunt after amusements and 
excitement, family life at the German court, of which 
the contemporary press made so much, was a delusion, 
goes without saying, though, to accuse William of neg- 
lecting his Frau, in the ordinary sense of the word, 
would, perhaps, be unjust, for he kept up appearances 
in a general way, and I have reasons to believe that he 
loved his wife. Yet he had a knack of forgetting her 



SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 43 

very existence whenever he thought he was better off 
alone. 

And his fixed idea of self-sufficiency grew stronger 
and stronger with him as his egotism developed into 
egomania. 

With all that, however, he was not an unkind hus- 
band, albeit his actions often implied lack of gentleness 
and generosity. It was his boundless love of self that 
claimed ascendency in his every action, no matter 
whether it affected the best friend he had in the world 
or his worst enemy. 

As in those awful days of San Remo, when he claimed, 
as representative of the old Emperor, precedence over 
his afflicted mothei* on the way to the village church, so 
he used his Emperorship as a club to intimidate all 
depending upon him into a state of utter submissive- 
ness. And this was going on so long that the Empress, 
on her part, had become used to it. 

As to the children, they were there for dynastic pur- 
poses, to learn and to grow up; what more can be 
required? Her Majesty's complaint, that they hardly 
saw their father, was true; seldom, if ever, did the 
youngsters appear at table, and the reports of their 
governor as to conduct and progress in learning had 
to suffice, time for meeting not being available. 

The Kaiser's idea of women was that they were 
wholly for purposes of amusement or propagation., and 
children for the purpose of maintaining family lineages 
or the population of the Empire — this was German 
" Kultur " ! 

The Kaiser's up-stairs study, a large, lofty room, 
was the rostrum from which the Empire and the whole 
world in general were addressed (who knows not the 
dateline: "Given at the Neues Palais?"). Near the 
fireplace was the Emperor's writing-table, a big, clumsy, 
walnut affair with machine-turned feet, and trimmings 
such as may be found in any well-regulated household 
in Germany. The Berliner calls this piece of titled 



U SECRET LIJ'E OF THE XAISEH 

inelegancy " Diplomat's Desk," for what special reason 
I do not know. The top was usually covered with 
marine views, charcoal sketches and photographs of 
beautiful women, framed and unframed. 

As is well known, both their Majesties had a passion 
for photography, which William was wont to call " a 
royal art" until he heard that the Duke of Marl- 
borough, " who married a daughter of the republic for 
her money" practiced it; but, while her Majesty col- 
lected photographs indiscriminately, the Kaiser showed 
a decided partiality for those of charming women. 

True, he honored men in the service of the court of 
government, or of social renown, quite frequently by 
requests for pictures; but on receiving them he in- 
variably shut them away " where the flies cannot get 
at them?" while portraits of handsome princesses and 
other fair ones who made an impression upon the 
imperial mind were everywhere in William's rooms — 
figures large and small, in all sorts of costumes, or even 
distinguished by an absence of such; plain pictures, 
silver prints, in colors or painted over; personal gifts, 
inscribed with sweet sentiments or the output of art 
stores. 

Among the likenesses regularly found on the Em- 
peror's writing-table, no matter whether he was at home 
or in his private car, or visiting with relatives and 

friends, was one of the Duchess of , remarkable for 

the fact that her Imperial Highness was uncovered 
except for a necklace of pear-shaped pearls. For this 
portrait the Kaiser professed a special liking, because, 
he said, it reminded him of a certain masterpiece 
representing Letitia's great-grand-aunt, the Empress 
Josephine. 

" Don't you think it does ? " he once, after a lengthy 
dissertation on the point, asked his wife, who cordially 
detests her cousin. 

Other picture favorites of his included the daughter 
of a Prussian general. This young lady figured oc- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 45 

casionally in living pictures arranged by members of tHe 
court society, and, with her rich Titian hair, big blue 
eyes and chaste figure, was perhaps, the most beautiful 
German girl of the period. 

A continuous source of amusement to the Kaiser were 
the minute accounts of his daily labors in the vineyards 
of statecraft, and of almost any other vocation imag- 
inable, which he ordered published in books, magazines, 
pamphlets and newspapers with a minuteness of detail 
and conceived in a know-all vein of assurance, inter- 
larded with " deepest " and " highest " admiration, that 
make them soul-stirring and " pathetic," he thought. 

These descriptions of what is indescribable (for the 
greater part of the labors ascribed to the Kaiser were 
creations of the author's fancies) commenced to pour in 
on us almost with the beginning of his reign, when in 
a speech to the municipal council of Berlin he protested 
against the imputation that he traveled around for the 
fun of the thing. 

" I have placed my health and all my bodily resources 
in jeopardy to serve the cause of peace and to promote 
the Fatherland's prosperity by visiting allies and 
friends in all parts of the world," he cried. And 
German opinion, always ready to be corrected, at once 
changed its sing-song of the Kaiser-on-the-tramp into 
that of the Kaiser-at-work. 

After that it became the fashion among sycophants 
to pronounce William a perpetuum mobile of useful 
activity. 

I will not weary the reader by attempting a detailed 
account of the Kaiser's employments, — of when he de- 
signed to get up and when he " graciously " retired, 
worked at governing and governed the work of others ; 
listened to reports and asserted himself; fenced, rode, 
drove and what not, — that life which was but a " whirli- 
gig of hard labor for the good of the people and for the 
peace of Europe," or else an attempt to square accounts 
with the Supreme Creator. 



46 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

The Kaiser imagined he was going through one of 
these high-minded performances continuously, whether 
he drew plans for an impossible battleship, or part of 
the civil list ; whether he risked his bones in a Troika 
driven by a German, who knew no more about handling 
three Asiatic stallions than I do about cutting dia- 
monds, or read a speech from the throne — all was fish 
in the net of imperial aggrandizement thrown out at 
random to entwine loyal minds at home and abroad, — 
people who thought it an honor to be dazzled by princes, 
and " winked quite honestly at royal radiance." 

The underlying idea of these efforts was to keep up 
the myth of incessant service rendered to the Crown, a 
martyrdom of work broken occasionally by a stroke of 
genius, such as writing a novel, painting a picture, com- 
posing music or inventing this, that or the other thing. 

William was not made of the clay of the philosopher 
of Sans Souci, nor of that of the lion of St. Helena. 
He was not even clever at masquerading in the lion's 
skin. At school and at college the highest degree at- 
tained by him was " satisfactory " — another pupil, be- 
ing no more satisfactory, would have been called in- 
competent. 

His attempt at handling large masses of troops, in 
the presence of the Emperor of Austria and the King of 
Saxony, led to disaster, while Count Waldersee pre- 
ferred to resign as chief of the general staff rather than 
permit the Emperor to meddle with his department and 
periodically discharge batteries of ignorance at him, as 
the General told Bismarck during a visit to Friedrichs- 
ruhe shortly after assuming command of the Ninth 
Corps. 

Count Seckendorf furnished an amusing skit on 
William's tale of woe about " risking health and life to 
save the Fatherland." 

" Enduring fatigues, he calls it," said the count ; 
" to be bathed and groomed ; breakfast ; take a canter 
on a horse previously tired out, and so trained as to 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 47 

give the rider not the least trouble; breakfast again, 
ride to a parade, or, while stretching on a lounge, listen 
to reports carefully worded so that they may be agree- 
able to the imperial digestion; before luncheon, some 
pleasant conversation with officers from all parts of the 
country; meal diversified by clever men and women, 
drummed together for the purpose of disporting their 
wit and retailing the latest gossip; after luncheon, a 
cold rub-down and an hour's absolute rest in a com- 
fortable bed; dressed anew by smart servants; meal 
number four, — coffee and cakes, — a drive or lawn- 
tennis ; a minister or a general makes his report, after 
dinner, theater or reception ; finally, meal number five ; 
bed. 

" Or instead of so unexciting an afternoon, an im- 
promptu hunting trip, a cruise on the Havel lakes, and, 
on extraordinary occasions, a state council, a visit to 
the Chancellor to air one's opinion, or to a rehearsal 
to catechise actor and actresses. Is that work? " 

Not for the master who, mapping out a twelve, four- 
teen or eighteen hours' program enjoyed every minute 
of it while his servants drudged and all are servants in 
William's eye. That his strength might never fail him 
he partook of five meals per day, while " servants " not 
admitted to the imperial table must be content, very 
frequently, to dine off the vapors from the dishes borne 
past them. 

" My indefatigability," " my prowess,'' were per- 
petual themes with the Kaiser. 

As a further example of William's " Kultur," let me 
give one incident which may throw some light on 
William as a composer, his alleged love of music, as 
a poet, ^s a painter and as what his sister. Princess 
of Meiningen, called him — " a charlatan." 

On October 24, 1894, the Kaiser's " Song to ^gir," 
was performed at a matinee in the Royal Opera House, 
which the Prince and Princess of Wied attended, to- 
gether with their Majesties. 



'48 SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 

The Prince, then a man in the fifties, belonged to one 
of the proudest families in Europe, was the brother of 
the Queen of Rumania and an uncle of the Queen of 
Holland; yet every time the big audience waxed en- 
thusiastic over the Kaiser's alleged masterpiece, this 
old man with silvery hair rose respectfully from his seat 
and bowed low before his nephew, keeping up the farce 
all through the performance without William in any 
way restraining him. 

And this reminds me, by way of contrast of a con- 
versation at which I was present some time previous to 
that public exhibition of senile adulation. 

" Tell me, honestly, who helped his Majesty compose 
this frightful ' Song to ^Egir? ' " 

" State secret. Your Royal Highness must certainly 
excuse me this time," and Adjutant Count Moltke 
looked up helplessly into the beautiful eyes of the 
Emperor's sister. 

" As my big brother remarked the other day to the 
Burgomaster of Thorn : ' I can be very disagreeable if 
need be,' " said the Princess of Meiningen. " Now, 
Major, answer and pat, I command you." 

" His Majesty composed the song." 

" That is the official version, I know ; what I am 
interested in is, to find out how he did it." 

" At the piano. Your Royal Highness." 

" Since when does His Majesty play.? " 

" He has the finest ear for music, that your Royal 
Highness will not deny. He struck the keys with one 
finger, and, if you promise not to give me away, your 
humble servant had the honor of putting the all-highest 
composition on paper." 

" Thanks, awfully," said the Princess, and, turning 
to her lady-in-waiting, von Ramin, later Madame von 
Brochen, she added : " Not a word of this to anybody ; 
our dear Moltke must not be punished for amusing us." 
And once more addressing the adjutant she continued 
;with her usual mocking laugh : " I will now tell you how 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 49 

it was done, you innocent. The Emperor was strum- 
ming the piano with one finger, when a certain blonde 
giant about your size stepped behind him, and, striking 
the keys, gave life to a musical composition he, the 
giant, had half-perfected in his head. The air pleased 
His Majesty, and he added a note here and there. And 
as the thing progressed, my big brother said : * This 
would be an excellent accompaniment to Eulenburg's 
northern legend. Call him at once.' When the trou- 
bador appeared, all three of you set to work on this 
frightful piece of clap-trap, and, as you correctly re- 
ported, the honor of putting the composition on paper 
fell to you as the only capable musician of the trio, — 
the composition, I said, not the all-highest one." 

This lively colloquy occurred a few days after the 
much-disputed air had been performed at a concert in 
honor of a deputation from the British Royal Dragoons 
visiting Berlin to congratulate their nev/ chief, the 
Kaiser, and it gives the true story of the birth of that 
song. For the orchestration. Professor Albert Becker 
was responsible and got the Hohenzollern Cross in 
acknowledgment. 

Besides clearing up the " Mgir " mystery, the above 
affords an interesting illustration of William's mode of 
work. He has talents, undoubtedly, but they are crea-, 
tive only in giving work to others, the product passing 
for his own in the end. As Moltke and Philip Eulen- 
burg \are the -real authors of " his " " Song to ^gir," 
so Professor Knackfuss composed his cartoons, though 
being credited only with their technical execution. The 
late Court Chaplain Frommel used to write the imperial 
sermons delivered with so much eclat on the deck of 
the yacht Hohenzollern; officers of the military house- 
Saltzmann painted his landscapes and marine views, 
hold prepared William's lectures, and the artist Karl 

To shield their master from the accusation of frit- 
tering away his time in useless dilettantism, the German 
official press printed, every little while, historic reviews 



50 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

purporting to show that the Hohenzollerns of all ages 
have been among the most gifted of mortals — authors, 
poets, musicians, artists. 

Especially to Frederick William the First's cleverness 
as a painter, constant reference is made, although any- 
one acquainted with the history of the Prussian court 
might be aware of the untenableness of that claim. The 
father of the great Frederick wrote his royal signature 
on a good many canvases, it is true, but few of the 
pictures attributed to his brush were really his. As a 
matter of fact, instead of being the Apelles of the 
Brandenburg dynasty, its first noted painter, he started 
the fashion of counterfeiting, of which his son became 
past-master. His scheme was to employ poor artists^ 
by the year, and to let them paint daubs of all sizes and 
subjects. These he adorned with his name, adding a 
little coloring here and there into the bargain, and sold 
at high prices to flatterers and enemies, as the case 
might be, for in those days the modes of punishment at 
the disposal of a Majesty were manifold and curious. 

A cunning knave this second King of Prussia, and his 
august example was not entirely lost upon his suc- 
cessors. But there is still another point to be noticed. 
William's daily program precludes in itself the under- 
taking of serious work on the Kaiser's part. Having 
forever one foot in the stirrup and planning new 
diversions before another is fairly under way, how 
should this alleged jack-of -all-trades find time for the 
literary, musical, and artistic pursuits credited to him? 

There are geniuses who accomplish a prodigious 
amount of work by turning night into day ; but, with all 
my experience in the royal household, I am at a loss to 
account for the newspaper statements that used to set 
forth that now and again the Kaiser had spent half, or 
three-quarters of the night, studying state papers or 
working out great projects in the interest of public 
concern. 

In the first place, his constitutional aversion to sit- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 51 

ting still for a considerable time was against night 
work, even supposing that the day's or evening's amuse- 
ments had not tired out William so completely as to 
make it impossible for him to give the necessary atten- 
tion to important business. 

Still, to defend myself against accusations of inac- 
curacy I had better quote certain notes from my diary. 

Of three hundred and sixty-five days, the Kaiser was 
away from his official residence one hundred and ninety- 
nine, devoting himself to the army on twenty-seven days 
and employing sixteen days in duties of representation. 
One hundred and fifty-six days were consumed by hunt- 
ing-trips, sea-journeys and visiting. 

Now to the one hundred and sixty-six days when he 
was " officially " at home. Seventy-seven of them were 
pleasantly passed in shooting, boating, yachting or 
other outdoor exercise in the neighborhood of Potsdam 
or Berlin, while of the remaining eighty-nine days, each 
twenty-four hours were diversified by banquets, corsos, 
concerts, theatrical performances; by receptions, re- 
views or speechmakings. The number of miles covered 
by the Kaiser during the period mentioned, amounted to 
three-quarters of the earth's circumference. 

A dozen members of our court society were discussing 
the above at a musicale given by the widow of the Red 
Prince in her palace on Leipziger Platz, when Princess 
Aribert of Anhalt, a sprightly young English-woman, 
remarked : " Granted the Kaiser cannot ply the fourteen 
trades and arts imputed by'some historians to Peter the 
Great, no one will gainsay that he is a brilliant speaker 
and an adept in military science." 

" Of his rhetorical qualities," replied our hostess, 
" foreigners, even those understanding German as well 
as you, my dear, can hardly form a proper estimate. 
For myself, I think the Kaiser's speeches neither dis- 
tinguished for elegance of diction or for originality. 
The most offensive sameness pervades them, and not 
infrequently they abound in misstatements." 



52 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

I could have furnished Her Royal Highness at least 
one very good reason for the faults pointed out; these 
speeches are of the Kaiser's own making. 

Only very rarely would he take the trouble to jot 
down minutes of the speeches he intends to make. 
Moreover, I doubt that he thinks it necessarj^ to do 
so. . A person who, relying merely upon his musical 
ear, and without having had instruction in singing, or 
being able to play an instrument, gets up in a stately 
gathering to sing an aria abounding in difficult pas- 
sages, is certainly the quintessence of self-reliance. 

That is exactly what William did at Castle Schlitz, 
with Count Goertz as accompanist, the boldness of the 
exploit before an audience distinguished for artistic 
accomplishments being none the less pronounced on 
account of the fact that the air was alleged to be 
his own composition. 

Of the performance, Countess Goertz spoke to the 
Empress in most enthusiastic terms; but, to quote 
William, " her Ladyship is a woman so beautiful that 
to expect sense from her would be hoggish." 

That on the same occasion His Majesty acquitted 
himself quite well of conducting the band, a military 
one, which had been thoroughly drilled in performing 
the " Song to ^E'gir," is not astonishing. With his ear 
for music and a little attention to technique, it would 
have been difficult, indeed, to lead so finished an organi- 
zation into blunders, when every man knew that his 
slightest mistake would be followed by professional 
disgrace. 

Some months after the exploit in Schlitz, His 
Majesty and a great number of friends were hunting 
near Castle Leizlingen, the band of the Saltzwedel 
Lancers furnishing the table-music. At that time, the 
official papers reported, " the Kaiser again proved his 
eminent musical talent by conducting the grand march 
from ' Aida.' " One of the party. General von 
Haenisch, however, tells me that this is not true. The 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 53 

Kaiser took up the bato'n to lead the " Hohenfried- 
berger " and Count Moltke's " Rider's March," com- 
positions of quite a different caliber to Verdi's great 
work, and which, besides, the band could have played 
in the dark and with eyes shut. 

To return to the observations of Princess Frederick 
Charles: There is, among the numberless speeches and 
sayings reported of the Kaiser, not one pithy remark 
that has become a by-word in every-day speech or in 
letters. In all this dreary wilderness of imperial ver- 
bosity, we find no mot that outlived the hour of its 
birth, and the Kaiser's observations, as a general thing, 
are too commonplace and insignificant even to permit 
dressing up. 

Other important persons are made to say clever 
things, often without their knowledge or consent, but 
William's friends and admirers scour his speeches vainly 
for a peg upon which to hang some witticism, or some 
flash of genius that might eventually be credited to the 
royal tattler. 

The Emperor, who claims to be a student of the older 
French literature, probably got far enough in Rivarol 
to learn that " it is an immense advantage to have never 
said anything." The sentence following, namely, " but 
one should not abuse it," he must have overlooked, for 
he certainly did abuse the privilege. And in a twofold 
manner, too ; he kept on saying nothing, and habitually 
misquoted history. 

I have not kept a minute account of the missives, but, 
if memory serves me right, I should say that fully one- 
third of the mysterious anonymous letters that caused 
the great court scandal of which I will speak presently, 
contained caustic references to the Kaiser's assassina- 
tion of historical facts. 

So was, during a Christmas season, her Majesty's 
holiday humor seriously disturbed by an epistle hauling 
the Kaiser over the coals for a speech he had made in 
Kiel, at the swearing-in of recruits, and which referred 



54 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

to the battle of Vercella (101 B.C.) as having been 
fought " between Germans and Romans " (mistake No. 
1), and wherein " the Romans were vanquished" (mis- 
take No. 2) "by the enemy's superior valor " (mistake 
No. 3). 

After pointing out a half-dozen other errors, the 
writer of the anonymous note suggested that Augusta 
Victoria buy her husband a small reference-library ; at 
the same time the correspondent thanked " William- 
the-Sudden " for having garbled history in order to pay 
homage to the arms of ancient France, " for," said this 
writer, " the barbaric tribe which opposed the Romans 
at Vercella were not Germans, but Cimbri or Gauls; 
that is, they belonged to the same family as the French 
of to-day." 

Similar anonymous notes emptied the vials of sar- 
casm over the composer of the " Song to JSgir," 
which latter, it was pointed out, was not a god of the 
sea, but a miserable landlubber, who never had so much 
as a sniff of the ocean. 

The Empress used to turn over these epistles to her 
husband, with an aching heart ; but if she, like most of 
her friends, hoped that these missives would make 
William more careful, her expectations were not rea- 
lized, for the Kaiser went bravely on blundering and 
exposing himself to ridicule. 

Much as one might be inclined to look up this sort of 
coxcombry as a harmless affectation liable to wear off 
in the course of time, its real purpose is too glaring to 
be overlooked ; his parading with plumes borrowed and 
stolen, his many bids for popular applause through 
newspaper adulation smacking of the methods of the 
press agent, William's public lecturing and preaching, 
his coquetting with the stage and letters, — all was but 
part of a system carefully pieced together to uphold the 
pretence of imperial omnipotence and omni-knowledge. 



CHAPTER IV 

It was a motley array of Weetklings I found in the 
imperial household. The Kaiser shunned strong char- 
acters — they annoyed him while, in the presence of 
weaklings, he always felt the strong man himself. 

I think the man" whom I despised most from the day 
I entered the palace was Major von Liebenau, the court 
marshal, who for many years exercised a strange in- 
fluence over the Kaiser. 

I had seen royalty born, and had helped to distribute 
its garter on the wedding eve ; I had stood at its death 
bed, and in royal company had enjoyed the good things 
of this world — in fact the greater part of my life had 
been spent at court ; but where formerly I was welcomed 
as a friend and companion, I was now — such are the 
vicissitudes of life — merely one of a few hundred at- 
tendants. Was, then, Madame de CornuePs adage, that 
no great man is perfect in his valet's eyes, to be brought 
home to me with terrible force right at the beginning? 

" These people," I argued to myself, " are like 
sponges, absorbing the atmosphere of their environ- 
ment, being at the same time too careful of their own 
interests to assume an attitude out of countenance with 
that of their betters." 

The voice of court-marshal von Liebenau, now my 
superior, woke me from the reverie into which I had 
dropped. 

" My dear Baroness," said the courtier, rising from 
his armchair, " take a iDit of friendly advice before you 
select your suite of rooms among the apartments set 
aside for Her Majesty's ladies. If you want to succeed 
at our court, leave all thoughts of independence, all in- 
born notions of truthfulness and common, every-day 

55 



56 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

honesty, outside the palace gate, divest yourself of per- 
sonality — all individualism save that of our masters' is 
odious — be an automaton pure and simple, smile upon 
her Majesty's whims, do not be ruffled by a superior's 
insult, and if at any time you must fly into a rage, 
retaliate upon those under you." 

I was about to speak, to protest, but the court 
marshal anticipated me, 

" I know what you want to say," he cried ; " you 
think it mean and contemptible to let the innocent suffer 
for their betters' wrongs, and I agree with you, But 
we all do it, must do it ; it is a sort of lightning-rod for 
one's ill-temper. 

" Au revoir. Once more — ^be an automaton." 

Liebenau was a man after William's own heart, his 
(double in more than one respect. A lieutenant in the 
First Guards, he attracted the then Prince William's 
attention by the same characteristics that drew him to 
the younger Bismarck. 

When William was Crown Prince studying statecraft 
in the foreign office under Count Herbert's tutelage, 
Liebenau got his real foothold in the princely menage 
established in the Marble Palace, which he ruled with a 
high hand. At the same time the heir to the crown 
was revelling in the charms of divers queens of tragedy, 
comedy and the ballet, attached to the royal play and 
opera houses, taking his cue from Count Herbert who 
never spoke of the other sex except in the coarsest of 
terms. 

William's young wife saw herself reduced to the posi- 
tion of a " Holstein," good enough to fill a succession of 
royal cribs, ranging in size like the pipes of an organ. 
She was rigidly excluded from her husband's world of 
ideas and ambitions, which, perhaps, she did not com- 
prehend, but, for all that, endorsed with touching sin- 
cerity. These were indeed unhappy days for the royal 
Augusta Victoria. 

How often she has poured the story of her morti- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE ItAISER 57 

fication and disappointment into mine and the Countess 
Brockdorff's ears ! Poor Princess ! She had been 
brought up to the sober truth that royal women must 
get used to dividing their husband with others and 
bowed her blonde head under the historic bane not with 
the worst of grace. What rent her heart was William's 
cynical way of regarding woman's supreme duty and 
highest honor — motherhood. 

" I don't want to be looked upon as a means for 
propagating the royal race exclusively," she cried once. 
** But under Count Bismarck's teachings, the Prince 
seems to have forgotten that I possess any womanly 
qualities besides that of child-bearing." 

Fearful lest Her Royal Highness's hatred of Count 
Herbert might lead her to rash remarks in the presence 
of the old Emperor and her husband with both of whom 
young Bismarck was persona grata, I tried to inter- 
vene by suggesting that he was not altogether a bad 
man, having fought with distinction in the French war. 

" Yes, yes, I heard plenty about that," interrupted 
Augusta Victoria, impatiently ; " he is said to have 
received three bullets, and since then has made three of 
our sex extremely miserable — that person in Bonn, who 
caused the duel; the poor Princess Carolath, and 
myself." 

The fall of the Bismarcks is a matter of history, but 
that the present Empress played a decisive part in it, 
few, if any, writers have a notion of. It is true, 
Augusta Victoria dreaded her husband's parting with 
the Prince, but feared even more the constant intimate 
relations between William and Herbert Bismarck ; and 
while she once succeeded in striking his name from the 
list of guests on the Northland trip, giving his place 
to her uncle, Herbert was invited to accompany the 
Kaiser to England and on the Oriental tour, mainly, 
it was rumored, on account of his boast that, as secre- 
tary of foreign affairs, he would find ways and means 
to open the doors of the Sultan's harem to His Majesty, 



5S SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Whether Herbert Bismarck made such promises I 
cannot say; enough that my mistress believed he did, 
and persuaded Countess Waldersee (the former Miss 
Lee of New York) to beheve it also. Her Excellency 
was a most pious woman, and Herbert necessarily fig- 
ured in her inventory of proscribed persons with 9. big 
" H," as Baron von Mirbach put it. 

How the two august ladies worked for the downfall 
of the hated man ; a few pin-thrusts here, an allusion to 
the old Chancellor's ambition to set up a throne beside 
the throne there. " Crown Prince Herbert," " Woman- 
beater Herbert," " Son of his father," and what not. 
And in the end : " Down goes the mantle, and the Prince 
must follow." 

Of the old Chancellor, guilty of two unpardonable 
sins, that of possessing undoubted popularity, far 
exceeding the Emperor's, and a hearty disinclination to 
accommodate himself, after years of supreme rule, to 
the part William intended for him^ — of this " obstreper- 
ous servant " the Kaiser had been tired for a long time, 
and the separation enforced in March, 1890, was noth- 
ing if not premeditated. Indeed, the Kaiser's invio- 
lable intention to dismiss the " old man," as he called 
him, was expressed as far back as October, 1889, to 
Czar Alexander of Russia. 

However, the Kaiser had no notion whatever of get- 
ting rid of Count Herbert Bismarck too. Only the 
gross coercion used against the " old man " on the one 
hand, and on the other the fact that Bismarck, when 
making the historic appeal to the Empress Frederick — 
" his last stand " — ^learned that the petticoat camarilla 
had worked against his son as diligently as thfe Kaiser's 
increasing querulousness and thirst for independence — 
this aggravating circumstance alone forced resignation 
upon the Count. 

" And what will you do ? " asked William of tlie Sec- 
retary of State. 

" Follow my father," answered Herbert, 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 59 

Liebenau, though more the Kaiser's alter ego than 
Herbert, was never on terms of intimacy with William, 
who selected him as major-domo when, after his mar- 
riage, his household was established, for the same reason 
that, in 1897, prompted his nomination of a general of 
cavalry for the position of Postmaster General, viz.: 
because he was a good driller, a disciplinarian of the 
sort that does his master's bidding without the slightest 
thought for the feelings of others. An official reputed 
to carry out orders unflinchingly and, if need be, 
unscrupulously, was always apt to attract a man of 
William's arbitrary temperament. 

There was another point speaking in Liebenau's 
favor. At first William's income was a little over 
$50,000 per year, a mere bagatelle, considering the 
pretensions of both master and mistress ; but the court 
marshal, coming from a family in which the Prussian 
saying, " Golden collar — stomach hollow," has had 
practical demonstration through generations of uni- 
formed, spurred, and sabered vaingloriousness and 
misery, promised to carry on the stewardship that 
would have been moribund in most other hands, to a 
nicety — promised it, and kept his promise. 
, He did more. During the first two_ or three years, 
at least, he managed to set aside for the personal use 
of the Prince considerable funds. Later, debts were 
contracted; they were not of Liebenau's making, 
though. 

But, while ingratiating himself with William, and, in 
Tact, with the entire royal family — this " mounted beg- 
gar," as the old Empress Augusta called him, showed 
his natural inclination for the noble art of browbeating. 

Loyalty itself (I doubt whether a more loquacious 
reciter of courtly phrases and of assurances of respect 
and humility ever addressed a royal lady), nothing 
seemed to give this intriguer more satisfaction than to 
refuse, on the plea of expenditure, whatever the future 



60 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Empress expressed a wish for in the way of food, or 
petty luxury, not on the daily list. 

" Think of it," she said to me one morning, " this 
Liebenau refused me a glass of Madeira for second 
breakfast, claiming his budget would not permit such 
extravagance when we are alone, there being hardly 
enough to set the table as it ought to be set when the 
Prince himself is present. 

" ' My appropriation scarcely warrants the purchase 
of expensive wines for His Royal Highness's own con- 
sumption,' he had the impudence to tell me. I nearly 
choked with anger." 

When William became Crown Prince, Liebenau re- 
tained his position at the head of the largely augmented 
household ; but, on assuming the throne, the Kaiser kept 
him on the anxious bench many weeks before granting 
him the rank and title of Chief Grand Marshal of the 
Court. 

Liebenau established a reign of terror at the palace, 
as William had done in some departments of govern- 
ment ; but, while the Kaiser waited before promulgating 
his boast and threat : " There is but one master — -none 
other will I tolerate," his Marshal proceeded at once 
to demonstrate that he was the real King's lieutenant, 
vested with absolute power from whose decisions no 
appeal could be had. And that was no idle talk, for 
in domestic affairs the Kaiser listened to- no one but 
him. 

Thus, with a master the very reverse of polite, ac- 
cessible or generous, and a submaster trying to outdo 
the other in arbitrariness and contemptuous treatment 
of all beneath him in rank or social station, our^ court 
was in a wretched plight, and the Empress's ladies 
especially suffered from this barrack regime. 

Our private apartments in the Schloss at that time 
left much to wish for in a sanitary sense, as indeed 
they do now; but whenever Countess von Brockdorffj 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 61 

or any of us, ventured to suggest the slightest im- 
provement to the court marshal, that functionary cut 
short our complaints in the rudest manner possible. 
And not only that; even the Empress's orders were 
treated much in the same insolent fashion, so the whole 
court was kept in a perpetual turmoil. 

The male dignitaries and officials of the imperial 
household fared no better than ourselves under the 
King's lieutenant, and disgraceful rows and minor dis- 
turbances were of almost daily occurrence. While the 
servants, besides being subjected to the coarsest treat- 
ment, had to endure threats of corporal punishment. 

These browbeatings and bullyings continued uninter- 
rupted and unpunished until the omnipotent Pooh-Bah 
happened to run amuck of General von Wittich, chief 
of royal headquarters, who, ^ being offered insolence, 
threw down his gloves, and shaking his fist in the court 
marshal's face cried : " If you were not so far beneath 
me, I would whip you like the cur you are." 

Von Wittich reported the incident to the Emperor, 
and William, who was unwilling to lose the General, 
concluded that Liebenau needed some of his own medi- 
cine. So he sent for him. 

" I will assume that your quarrelsomeness is the out- 
come of overwork and nervous excitement," he said, 
forestalling explanations ; " you will leave this evening 
for a six-weeks' holiday." Then he turned on his heel, 
while the court marshal stood half-dazed. 

But six weeks do not last an eternity and at the end 
of his vacation Liebenau seemed to be as much of a 
favorite as ever. In fact, the Emperor appeared to 
welcome back with much satisfaction his double, from 
whose resemblance to his own self he had recoiled at a 
moment of anger. 

And if Liebenau had not double-crossed the " all- 
highest " himself, he might have continued to defy the 
Empress and cudgel the court for a quarter of a 
century longer. 



62 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

But he happened to do the Kaiser out of an ovation 
at the very moment ^hen William craved and needed 
popular applause more than usual, and this is what 
happened to our tormentor ! 

" A word with you," said William looking his nastiest 
at the court marshal on his return from the trip, " this 
affair of Elbing (the place where William missed the 
' hurrahs ') has opened my eyes to your character and 
capabilities. I can't use a person who sets my people 
against God's anointed! You have antagonized her 
Majesty, the court, the aristocracy, my people, you 
have antagonized me. You are sacked, do you hear 
what I say, sacked." 

" Roared at and kicked out like a dog-snatcher," 
whined the scared bully as he went out with bowed 
head. 

To complete the triumvirate of ambition, insolence 
and libertinage, let me now introduce the Kaiser's 
most infamous friend, Philip Eulenburg. 

Here we have a chartered libertine, whom the Kaiser 
raised from the position of an obscure Councilor of 
Legation to the greatest honors in the land, whom he 
enriched at the taxpayers' expense by various grants 
and, finally, made practical overseer of the whole Ger- 
man diplomatic corps. 

William erected his own statue in Eulenburg's palace 
yard, conferred upon him the title of Prince and 
appointed him Member of the House of Lords and 
Privy Councilor. 

A wing of Liebenberg Castle, communicating with 
" Phili's " apartments, was set aside for William's own 
imperial use — in short, he showered him, up to the very 
day of the Harden exposures, with every favor in his 
power. 

Eulenburg was Third Secretary of Legation in 
Munich when they first met at Castle Schlobitten, the 
seat of Count, later Prince, Richard Dohna, who sub- 
sequently stigmatized the part he unwittingly played by 



SECRET LIFE OF THE ItAISER 63 

this chance introduction as " the great folly of his life, 
never to be sufficiently atoned for." 

Less than a month after the meeting at Schlobitten, 
the unknown diplomat's appointment as Minister to 
Oldenburg was gazetted and two years later — Eulen- 
burg having in the meantime attended the Kaiser on his 
Northland trip — we find him ambassador at royal 
courts, Stuttgart and Munich. In 1902 he was the 
Kaiser's representative in Vienna when not dancing at- 
tendance upon William in Berlin, at his hunting boxes 
or on his travels. 

Eulenburg had little besides his salary to bless him- 
self with during these early years, for Liebenberg, 
bought with his wife's money, yielded no revenue to 
speak of. 

Eulenburg was kept poor and made poorer year by 
year by the Kaiser's flattering, but expensive visits. 
Like the typical Prussian official, he never had money 
of his own. 

Add to this the expensive habits of court life, and 
the terrible infliction of having to feed seven hungry 
youngsters (" so devoted a royalist would never think 
of having few^r children, or more, than William," it 
was said), and you get a vague notion of things as they 
were in the Eulenburg household. 

The promotion to the Munich post, together with 
the excessive allowance for moving, helped Eulenburg 
momentarily; but until the appointment to Vienna put 
considerable funds into his pockets, he never breathed 
freely. 

Eulenburg was in the very throes of financial despair, 
as everybody at court knew. The Kaiser alone af- 
fected to be ignorant of his friend's trials, and often 
remarked : " I like nothing better than spending a 
few days at Liebenberg; the only trouble is, the place 
is so terribly old-fashioned," words that were repeated 
to the Minister by the royal house officials and occa- 
sional guests over and over again. 



64 SECRiET LIFE OF THfi KAISER 

So frequent and so annoying were these references, 
that the Prince of Meiningen once said : " He will be 
driven to the Jew, if you keep on." 

" Keep on — what ? " retorted the Emperor angrily. 

** Throwing his poverty up to him." 

" Do you see him anywhere about ? " said the Kaiser 
sarcastically. 

" No," replied the Princess Charlotte, " for a won- 
der, there is no Eulenburg present, but the gossips-in- 
ordinary are," and her Royal Highness, raising one of 
her fair shoulders, pointed to General von Hahnke and 
von Plessen. 

Eulenburg, however, did not go to the usurer, but 
selected the safer though thorny, road — he borrowed 
from a relative, his sister-in-law, wife of Count Eulen- 
burg, Major in the Guard Dragoons. This lady, 
blessed with a considerable fortune in her own right, 
allowed herself to be persuaded to provide not only 
funds for the building and furnishing of an imperial 
suite of rooms at Count Philli's seat, but in addition, 
lent her brother-in-law a snug sum, the interest of which 
was to be exclusively applied to the entertainment of 
His Majesty. 

And on condition that she be invited to meet His 
Majesty twice per year. Madam relinquished all claims 
for interest. 

To this extraordinary display of respectful devotion 
on the part of the Eulenburg family, his Majesty was 
not insensible: not only was Count Philli, who never in 
his life had distinguished himself as a diplomat, pro- 
moted beyond the dreams of hardened office-seekerdom, 
but gratitude led William to unwonted extravagance. 

To improve the outlook from the imperial suite of 
rooms at Liebenberg, he presented his host with a stone 
fountain " to be erected in the farmyard opposite his 
Majesty's windows," leaving to His Excellency the cost 
of setting up and finding water. Countess Eulenburg, 
she of the loose purse, who was good at figures, told 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 65 

Countess Brockdorff that the expense of rearing the 
ornament exceeded by far the sculptor's and stone- 
cutter's bills. 

But while Eulenburg, like the rest of his Majesty's 
impecunious but useful friends, never " saw the color 
of his money," he did taste much of the sweetness said 
to reside in what Pitt called " the Power behind the 
throne." Because he learned to bedizen himself with 
the Kaiser's weaknesses and small vices, to acquiesce in 
his (William's) lack of principles; because he had it 
in his heart to gloss over the Kaiser's faults and to 
affect admiration for all his doing and sayings, one of 
the chief regalisms was turned over to his tender care 
— the making and unmaking of the diplomatic corps. 

" Courtiers," said the Kaiser, " are like the clothes I 
wear: necessities. They have their fixed places in my 
circle ; men as Eulenburg, on the other hand, are butter 
on the bread of our pleasure ; as for the rest, one can 
get along without negligee attire, but it is mighty un- 
comfortable in the long run." 

When Eulenburg inherited the domain of Hertefeld 
in Rhineland, with an income of quite 100,000 marks 
per year ($25,000), the Kaiser created him succes- 
sively Baron of Hertefeld, Count von Sandels and 
Prince, with the appellation of Serene Highness. 

And, after the late Baron Nathan Rothschild — all 
the " round table " called him " Nathie " — made the 
new Highness heir to a couple of millions of francs, 
the Kaiser added the title of " Right Honorable Privy 
Councilor to the Prussian Crown " and sent " Philli " 
to the House of Lords as his special representative. 

Prince " Philli " is the father of two daughters, 
Alexandrine and Victoria. His eldest son, Frederick, 
married a rich Viennese girl and has one daughter. 
There are two younger sons, Siegwart and Charles. 

Their sister Augusta ran away from home with her 
father's secretary, Edmund Jaroljmek, a Pole. 

After the first Harden trial, Countess Augusta cou- 



66 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

gratulated the editor on his victory over her father, 
while Jaroljmek, to balance accounts, declared em- 
phatically tljat the rumors stamping him a victim of 
his father-in-law's libertinage had no foundation in fact 
— which is uplifting, to say the least. 

To finish " Philli's " family : His daughter-in-law, 
nee Marie Baroness de Meinholf, refused to ever set 
foot in Liebenberg again and abandoned the construc- 
tion of the grand castle arising, half finished, in the 
shadow of the princely chateau. 

To establish, in cold type, the relationship between 
Kaiser Wilhelm and the person adandoned by his 
cliildren, common decency forbids. That it continued 
for twenty-years the scandalum magnatiim of Europe's 
courts, despite the protests and anathemas of three 
Chancelors — suffices to characterize the friendship be- 
tween the head of the German Empire and the most 
notorious libertine in Europe. 

Prince Bismarck used to say : " There have been 
some clever warriors am.ong the Perverse — Alcibiades, 
Caesar, Peter the Great, and many Turkish Sultans, 
whose names I forgot — ^but never a diplomat of dis- 
tinction." 

And both old Bismarck and Herbert made it their 
business to tell the Emperor repeatedly that Eulen- 
burg was unfit company for him, stating their reasons 
in the plainest language. 

To cap the climax the elder Bismarck added : " One 
glance of Eulenburg's eyes is enough to spoil the most 
elaborate luncheon for me." 

But the Kaiser took no notice and continued to 
associate with this man and his infamous coterie : Gen- 
eral Count Kuno Moltke, Count Johannes Lynar, who 
went to prison; Counts Fritz and William Hohennau, 
Friedrich Krupp, the cannon king, and others. 

Opinion at court and serious men generally, fully 
endorsed Prince Bismarck's drastic characterization 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 67 

and there were many who thought it applied to all the 
rest of His Majesty's intimates, including Huelsen, and 
the cloud of military chums, his adjutants, etc. 

"It is a pity," said the Empress Frederick after 
Count Waldersee's retirement from Berlin, " that my 
son will have none ^3ut lightweights about him ; all men 
of acumen are pushed aside. Still, I suppose I must 
not grumble so long as Count Herbert is kept out." 
Empress Frederick regarded Herbert Bismarck as the 
man who had instilled in the Emperor the liking for 
persons of his — Herbert's — stamp — flatterers, shallow 
and insolent, defamers of womankind, taphouse jesters 
and buttons. " Scratch either of the Kiderlen-Eulen- 
burg crew and the pickle herring will appear," she was 
wont to say, and years ago nothing gave her greater 
satisfaction than the termination of William's friend- 
ship with the Austrian Crown Prince Rudolph, whom 
she abhorred as any decent woman might abhor a 
beast. 

After all, men and women are judged by the com- 
pany they keep. Admitted that the Kaiser had not a 
great number of peers to choose from — Count Schulen- 
burg, royal chamberlain, figured out that every tenth 
German noble was a moral leper — if William himself 
had been a clean, decent man, why did he select the 
most notorious and despicable members of the aristoc- 
racy for his companions? 

There were the two Hohenau's, fugitives from jus- 
tice ; Count Kuno Moltke, ditto ; Count Lynar, Prisoner 
No. 2213 at Liegburg Penitentiary; Count Edgar 
Wedell, banished from German soil; Major Von Ner- 
mann, suicide when about to be taken into custody. 

But admitting that Prussian nobles are rotters, there 
were at least sixty-nine millions of other Germans to 
choose from. 

Correct. His Majesty did choose among them. And 
here are the names, etc., according to Criminal Court 



68 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

records: Sailor Trost, of the Hohenzollern ; Recrulf 
Bollhardt, of the Cuirassiers ; Corporal Riedel, of the 
Lancers; Gus Steinhauer, police sergeant; Private 
K-estler and others of that caliber. 

Most of the last named crew are in jail, or were in 
jail when the war broke out. 



CHAPTER V 

The Kaiser mistreated his mother, the Kaiserin hated 
her mother-in-law. 

Taking all in all, it is quite evident that the lack of 
sympathy between the two Empresses had its origin in 
other causes than those popularly assigned. The Em- 
press Frederick could never quite forget " that girl's 
impudence." 

The day after Princess Victoria's arrival at Neues 
Palais, there happened to be a garden party to the 
poor children of the neighborhood, when they were 
treated to chocolate and cakes and music and condescen- 
sion ; cheap things, it is true, but highly appreciated. 

Victoria had to assist in this charitable enterprise, 
and did so with good grace, for everybody's eyes were 
upon her ; but when, at last, the children were dismissed, 
she ran to her apartments in hot haste, and, calling 
her maid, cried : " Off with this dress, quick, I'm afraid 
I smell of poor people ! " 

The expression of disgust was in bad taste, and 
exceedingly impolitic besides, for Victoria's attendant 
belonged to the royal household and forthwith blabbed 
about the incident in the " flunkies' own." 

And so it came to her mother-in-law's ears, and the 
same things began happening at the palace that hap- 
pen at Mrs. Brown's or Mrs, Jones's house on the 
avenue or the boulevard. 

As a consequence the young princess was warned to 
mend her ways toward Her Imperial Highness. She 
refused to do so ; she would rather make a Brockdorff 
her friend and invite a Waldersee to be her governess, 
than submit to the higher intellect of her husband's 
parents. 

At all times Auguste Victoria never loved, some- 

69 



70 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

times fought, and always feared her mother-in-law. 
There are people who assert that the similarity of 
their characters was one of the chief reasons for the 
strained relations between Kaiserin Frederick and her 
son. Both were too pig-headed, too prejudiced, too 
much wedded to the " no surrender " policy, to come to 
an understanding. 

Knowing both her husband's and her mother-in- 
law's weaknesses, Auguste Victoria ought to have in- 
termediated, or, that failing ought to have done her 
part toward bringing about and preserving amicable 
relations. But she did nothing of the kind. 

In those awful days of June, 1888, when the new 
Kaiser, attended by the madman Normann, exploited 
his cruel egotism at his father's death-bed, when he 
made his mother and sisters prisoners of state until his 
search for an imaginary secret testament was com- 
pleted — from 9 a. m., on June 15, until after Freder- 
ick's funeral — Augusta Victoria renounced her rights 
of wife and mother altogether; before W^illiam's deeds 
of unprecedented barbarity she relinquished even her 
womanly feelings. 

Even as she displayed none when her husband ordered 
outrages upon the women and children of Belgium, 
Northern France and the eastern countries and when 
his representatives in Turkey winked at the killing of 
a million Christians and the crucifixion of hundreds of 
girls and babies. 

If ever wife and mother ought to have stood up for 
another wife and mother ; if ever woman ought to have 
thrown the halo of womanly love around another, — 
that was the time! What did Auguste Victoria do.^ 
She said she would come to Friedrichskron as soon as 
her crepe gown was ready. 

Meanwhile, V^illiam had declared the property rights 
of all the people in the palace — his palace — forfeited 
for the time being; as the feudal lord of old seized a 
bondsman's personal estate while the body was yet 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 71 

warm, so had the presence of death — a father's waxen 
face — no restraining influence over the new master. 
The late Emperor's, his wife's and daughter's writing- 
desks, their strong boxes, trinket-boxes, bedrooms, and 
boudoirs, were subjected to a rigid examination before 
the owners were allowed access again. And in the 
midst of the rumpus a four-horse coach brought the new 
Empress ! 

Kaiserin Frederick had no patience to hear Auguste 
Victoria declaim. 

" Send Brockdorff away," she said, curtly. And then 
the proud old woman unbent enough to ask, nay, im- 
plore, her daughter-in-law to stop William's ravings. 

"By all that is holy to you," she is said to have 
exclaimed, " stop that man from desecrating my home 
and my noble dead. I have appealed to his love, to 
his sense of decency, to his manliness. It is your turn 
now. Talk to him with the authority of a wife and 
mother. He must listen to you. And unless you expect 
to be treated by your sons as I have been treated by 
my son during the last two hours, — restrain him, 
re-establish me as mistress within my own walls, and I 
will be forever grateful to you." 

Auguste Victoria went into the library, and returned 
after a few moments, her face flushed and trembling. 

" I can do nothing," she faltered out ; " ' Willie ' is 
here as Emperor, and I cannot interfere with his offi- 
cial business." 

" Then have the goodness to go back to your Marble 
Palace and play with your children," cried the widowed 
Empress hotly. 

And the hostilities were reopened. In the interval 
occasioned by the new Kaiserin's reception, William 
had informed his mother's officials and servants that 
he was their master now and that they must obey no 
one's orders but his own. 

Thereupon the old Empress : 

" Whoever refuses to carry out any of my commands 



72 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

promptly and willingly, will be instantly dismissed and 
forfeits his rights to pension." 

Victoria had furnished her court marshal with a 
list of persons who were to be admitted to the house 
in order that they might have a last look at her dead 
hero. Frederick's personal and political friends were 
on the list, but William tore it up. 

Have ever such scenes occurred in the presence of 
death? The new lord's "drill-ground tenor" cutting 
short the impassioned speech of an outraged wife and 
distracted mother ! Entreaties, appeals, threats, on 
the one side ; cold indifference, scorn, srteering references 
to " facts " on the other. 

There was no peace between the reigning Hohenzol- 
vlerns and the proud mother, shorn of power, thereafter. 
A resemblance of familiar intercourse was kept up as 
long as the Empress Augusta lived, but after her death 
the Kaiser' enmity to his mother became a matter of 
political significance. German statesmen trimmed their 
sails according to its fluctuations. 

The Empress Frederick and Augusta Victoria had 
one more momentous meeting when the negotiations for 
the Dowager Kaiserin's removal from Castle Friedrich- 
skron were pending. 

The older woman strenuously opposed her son's 
claims to the property, first because she herself desired 
to retain the house where she had lived so long, and, 
second, because she feared William would ruin himself 
in the possession of this castle, whose vastness and 
splendor offer particular temptations for establishing 
a court out of all proportions to the Kaiser's revenues. 
However, the " Augustenburger " would not see it in 
that light. She was as eager to branch out a la Ver- 
sailles as her husband. 

After three months of widowhood. Empress Frederick 
left Friedrichskron. She was crying bitterly as she 
went through the park and halls, taking leave of every- 
thing and everybody. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 73 

" Here I have spent the most beautiful days of my 
married life, and afterward endured the awfullest hours 
woman can endure," she remarked to General von 
Lindequist, then commander of Potsdam. To the of- 
ficials and servants, each of whom, she shook by the 
hand, she said : " If you ever want to see your old 
mistress again, you must come to Berlin, where I will 
make you welcome with pleasure. May palsy strike 
my foot if ever I thrust it over this threshold again." 

As was to be expected from a woman of her charac- 
ter, she kept her word. Occasional quasi enforced 
visits between their Majesties and Empress Frederick 
took place on neutral grounds. The Dowager Kaiserin 
received her son and daughter-in-law in the manor- 
house of the farm Bornstadt, a mile or so from the 
Neues Palais, and next day they repaired to the Marble 
Palace or Stadt Schloss to give her Majesty an oppor- 
tunity to return the compliment. 

Empress Frederick was very seldom in Berlin, and 
had always an excuse ready for declining invitations to 
official or private festivities held at her son's court. 
Even when she lived Under den Linden at Christmas 
time, she declined the pleasure of seeing the children. 
After the scenes at Frederick's death-bed she had been 
driven forth from her home, and this insult was quickly 
followed by another, aimed at her dead husband. 

After William and Auguste Victoria took possession 
of Friedrichskrou, this name was abolished by royal 
decree and the old, now meaningless Neues Palais rein- 
stated. I remember it well. All of a sudden officers 
of the court marshal's office called on the ladies and 
gentlemen of the court, demanding us to hand over 
every scrap of stationery stamped Friedrichkron. 
The confiscated stuff was burned, and we were left with- 
out writing-paper for a full week. Her Majesty her- 
self had to write her letters on ordinary blue-lined 
sheets, bought in a penny store, as she would not use 
the official foolscap. 



74 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

A third and fourth cause of chagrin to Empress 
Frederick was the Kaiser's treatment of his brother 
and sister. Prince Henry was to have had the Villa 
Carlotta in Sans Souci Park, which is Crown property, 
for a summer home, but the Kaiser lent the house and 
beautiful gardens to Baron von Lyncker. 

Next he turned the Meiningens out of their Thier- 
gc?rten villa, which Emperor Frederick had rented for 
his daughter and son-in-law with the understanding 
that the Minister of the royal house pay the rent as 
long as the Meiningens cared to remain. William no 
sooner learned of this arrangement than he repudi- 
ated it. 

"I pay the Meiningens' rent? Not for a day, not 
for an hour," and the landlord was at once notified that, 
after the expiration of the lease, at the end of three 
months, he would receive no more money from the royal 
treasury. 

Empress Frederick was shocked when my mistress 
decided to go to Felixstowe with her children and a 
suite of fifty persons, and, to secure more spending 
money, authorized court marshal von Eulenburg to 
deprive the servants of their allowance of butter for 
first breakfast and for supper. 

The Kaiser's menage never allowed butter for second 
breakfast. Now it happened that the servants trans- 
ferred from Empress Frederick's court to that of 
William, were among the first to petition for redress. 
Ergo, the cry of Empress Frederick's enemies, that 
" ' the Britisher ' was at the bottom of the quarrels." 

" I knew nothing about these petty quarrels," said the 
Dowager Kaiserin, some time afterwards, to Countess 
Wilhelm Hohenau, " but I certainly think that this 
latest make-shift was most disgraceful. Depriving a 
servant of his butter is as bad as selling a dead man's 
false teeth." 

Though the strong-minded English woman was noted 
for her outspoken criticisms, this remark, aimed di- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 75 

rectly at Augusta Victoria and coming to her ears in 
and quick possible way, created first consternation 
and later on a demand for repraisals. Since it required 
publicity, it became a virtue at court to call the Em- 
press Frederick names. 

As mentioned in another place, the German was per- 
mitted to designate Frederick William IV an ass, — not 
a " confounded ass " or a " mouse-colored ass," merely 
an ass, no more, no less, — but with respect to black- 
guarding the dowager, there was no limit whatever. 
She was a " traitress," of course, and " hands over 
German state secrets to her mother every morning for 
breakfast." " All the English and American news- 
papers that make fun of the Kaiser are in her pay," — 
certainly. " She tries to establish the London Sab- 
bath in Berlin," ** v/rites letters to Queen Louise of 
Denmark " and " conspires with her brother," the 
Prince of Wales. 

And now let us get to the bottom of the enmity 
between mother and son and between mother-in-law and 
daughter-in-law. 

Just one month after the reign of ninety-nine days 
had begun. Empress Frederick drove from Charlotten- 
burg to the Berlin Schloss, having previously ordered 
Prince Bismarck to meet her. Then the Kaiserin in- 
formed the Chancellor that Frederick had decided not 
to leave her (in the event if his death) to the tender 
mercies of her son. 

" Cherishing no illusions with respect to William's 
sense of justice, or to his gentlemanly qualities," he 
said, " the Emperor orders that seventy-five per cent, 
of my portion, as well as the dowries of my unmarried 
daughters and all my daughters' shares in our property, 
be paid by -the Crown treasury now, while the rest is 
to be held at our disposal, to be paid over the moment 
my husband dies, and before the new Emperor assumes 
control of the funds and revenues." 

Bismarck was dumbfounded. 



76 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

" Here are the Kaiser's orders, signed and counter- 
signed and sealed. And," added the Empress, " His 
Majesty enjoins your Grace and all the persons taking 
official cognizance of this act to the greatest secrecy. I 
have your word, Prince? " 

" You have. Your Majesty." 

Of this arrangement William never heard a breath 
until the morning of June 15. 

Those who followed the events preceding Bismarck's 
dismissal will remember that the Chancellor, before 
submitting to the Kaiser's request for his resignation, 
went to the Empress Frederick to ask her intercession. 
At that momentous interview he reminded her Majesty 
of the service rendered her two years before. But the 
Empress merely shook her head : " It is that which 
stands forever between me and my son." 

Money, always, money ! William Hohenzollern tried 
to convince the world that he despised Americans be- 
cause of " their love for dollars " ; he couldn't tolerate 
the English, because " they were a nation of hucksters," 
yet he fought with his mother over a few hundred thou- 
sand dollars, not because she owed him that amount, 
but because she would not allow him to rob her and 
his sisters of it. 

And the same high-minded William Hohenzollern 
made a woman (Countess Eulenburg) pay for his wine 
and meat and furnish him a suite of rooms. An 
uncrowned mortal who does such things earns for him- 
self an epithet that no publisher would print under 
any circumstances whatsoever. What about God's 
anointed ? 

When hundreds of German pens were busy composing 
scurrilous notes, my mistress received several missives 
that completely unnerved her, although their contents 
did not refer to escapades on the part of the Emperor, 
but, on the other hand, were inventions so stupid as to 
be almost pitiable. I dare hint at only one of the lot, 
— ft photograph representing a female with her Ma- 



Secret life of the kaiser ii 

jesty's face and features, and at her side court 
chaplain Stoecker in his well-known clerical bib. 

This reflection upon her platonic friendship for the 
bigoted and ambitious parson threw mj poor mistress 
into a fever from which she recovered only after a week 
or ten days. At the same time, the Kaiser, his adju- 
tants, his friends, the aristocracy, the conservaties, and 
almost the entire press engaged in " rotten-egging " 
Stoecker, and Augusta Victoria, who ought to have 
stood by him, kept silent. 

Some time after the receipt of the Stoecker picture 
the Emperor was absent. Princess Louise (sister of 
the Kaiserin) drove up while my mistress was having 
her hair dressed. 

"Princess Frederick Leopold?" repeated the Em- 
press, when I made the announcement. 

" So the Kammerdiener reports. Your Majesty." 

" Something must have happened at Glienecke ! 
Quick, Countess, go ask my sister's pardon, and beg 
her to come in here," and, turning to her women, her 
Majesty added: " You may retire for the present." 

The Kaiser and Frederick Leopold had not been on 
good terms for some time, and the royal sisters, who, 
of course, take sides with their husbands, had seen each 
other at stated occasions only during the past year. 
This explains my mistress' surmisal that something was 
amiss. 

Princess Louise was never handsome,^ but she looked 
a fright that morning. Her eyes were red and her 
face was blotched. " You must send everybody from 
the room and antechamber before I begin to speak to 
her Majesty," she said. 

The subject of conversation between the sisters was 
an anonymous note. 

" If you want to know why Frederick Leopold calls 
you a woman of the second class, consult your mirror 
when you go to bed to-night and compare your reflec- 
tion with : — " 



78 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

" The letter went on to tell what might happen if 
' Loloki ' learned of the relations between his mistress 
and his Royal Highness," and it was this semi-threat 
that brought Princess Louise to Augusta's feet. She 
asked her sister nothing more nor less than to ransack 
his Majesty's mailbag for a fac-simile of the telltale 
letter (there were always duplicates, you know). This 
my mistress refused to do. 

" I cannot believe in the reported intimacy between 
Willie and Countess Fritz," she said, " and will under- 
take nothing to either set right or deny the scan- 
dalous surmisal." 

When the Kaiser returned next day, it became evi- 
dent at once that he had a brand new grievance against 
" Milord of Glienecke," whom he held up to ridicule 
more than ever, and the ultimate result of it all was 
Frederick Leopold's appointment to the position of 
Brigadier of Infantry. The son of the famous Red 
Prince reduced to the foot, when he had confidently 
expected to obtain a command in the cavalry. It was 
the unkindest cut of all ! 

That the Kaiser told us ladies of his household what 
we should wear was t3^rannical, but not wholly unreason- 
able, seeing that he imagined he owned us body and 
soul, but other women, even relatives of his Majesty, 
would not take kindly to his expensive suggestions. 
Seldom did a ball or state occasion pass that there was 
not a gap in the line of our royal dames; now the 
Hereditary Princess of Hohenzollern sent " her re- 
grets," again Princess Aribert went to bed twenty-four 
hours previous to a costume festival at court. 

Even the Hereditary Grand Duchess of Baden 
declined time and again to help her husband by reckless 
extravagance of toilets, such as the Kaiser demanded 
his guests to engage in. 

As a matter of fact, William's passion for having 
everything his own way was entirely incompatible with 
reason. There was no art outside of the narrow circle 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 79 

approved by him, no stage and no state craft, unless 
conducted on rules laid down by him to actors, to par- 
liamentarians, to diplomats. His soldiers, his children, 
the women of his household and of society, his officials 
and men friends, all must be dressed, or must mas- 
querade, according to his varying moods. 

Strange to say, he succeeded in dazzling a lot of peo- 
ple ; others looked upon him as a madman and, being 
in his power, danced as he whistled lest they lose their 
head, official or social. But such of William's relatives, 
who could help themselves, gradually faded away from 
Berlin. They went to live in other German towns or 
in the country. It saved them lots of money for clothes 
and entertainment and a good many browbeatings be- 
sides. 

In the end only one Prussian Princess remained at 
court, the widow of Prince Frederick Charles, who 
conquered Metz by buying up Bazaine. 

Princess Marie, born Princess of Anhalt was a 
grande dame of the old school, who, despite poverty, 
drove the tallest horses, and employed the loveliest 
maids of honor and the best looking footmen. 

Those inclined to think that William was sufficient 
of evil in one and the same family, do riot reckon with 
the trait of imitativeness rampant among princes. Ger- 
man kings and kinglets loathe the Hohenzollerns, it is 
true, but, to a man, try to out-Prussianize them. 

When Berlin court gossip whispered that William 
got tipsy, the King of Bavaria went to bed with his 
boots on. 

When the Hohenzollern was said to have snubbed his 
wife, the King of Saxony beat his (and got well cuffed 
in return by the Royal Louise). 

When William condescended to pay the Berlin dog 
tax (without prejudice, mind you), the mighty Po- 
tentate of Reuss-Greitz-Schleitz-Kranichfeld and Ebers- 
walde decided to tax himself for the order of the Green 
Ass which he had bestowed upon himself. 



86 SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 

Princess Frederick Charles, like the Empress Fred- 
erick, was cursed with a son who was a complete egoist. 
Her late husband, the brutal and churlish Frederick 
Charles, who never relaxed the grasp of his riding-whip 
at home, had no sooner closed his drunken eyes, than 
his heir, Frederick Leopold, the Kaiser's cousin, kicked 
his mother out of her castle; the palace on Wilhelm's 
Platz and the country-seats of Glienecke, Drelinden, etc. 
This boy, scarcely of age, had no room for his mother. 
Every roof and every foot of his immense landed posses* 
sions he needed for his overgrown self. 

There were family meetings and notes of protest 
from all royal relatives of Europe; Frederick Leopold 
could neither be bullied nor whe€dled. He stood on his 
rights. The Kaiser finally patched up the ugly Al- 
bretch Palace, on Leipzlger Platz, for her, where 
Princess Marie lived, attended by Countess Puckler 
and Baron von Wangenheim, who has been her gentle- 
man of the bed-chamber for many years. 

There is a rumor that her Royal Highness's rela- 
tions to the Baron were legalized by a marriage enacted 
before the Minister of the Royal House, but I have 
never been able to verify this statement, which is 
guarded like a state secret. The fact that the Em- 
peror's and Empress's invitations to the Princess of 
late included Wangenheim seemed to indicate that the 
couple was at last united. 

When summer came, poor Princess Marie had to 
move with her little court to Castel Bruhl, a tumble- 
down palace between Bonn and Cologne, though dozens 
of wellkept imperial castles stood empty in the neigh- 
borhood of the capital. 

One afternoon, when the Princess entertained at 
Bruhl, Madame Surmond naively asked : " But your 
Royal Highness, why did you come down to this lonely 
chateau .^^ It must be very annoying to a lady who 
has lived in the great world all her life to put up with 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 81 

such poor company as we are, and with such comforts, 
or rather discomforts, as this castle offers." 

" My dear woman," answered Princess Marie, raising 
herself proudly, " I am penniless and homeless, truths 
you may be unable, or perhaps unwilling, to believe. 
But that makes them none the less onerous, I assure 
you : * You have a son, the richest prince in the empire, 
you say.' Yes, but my Leopold is not an agreeable 
man. He is hard-hearted, and he wishes me dead every 
day in the year." 

Still worse was the Kaiser's and Kaiserin's treatment 
of this royal lady during the severe illness of the Heredi- 
tary Grand Duchess of Oldenburg, Princess Frederick 
Charles's second daughter, who fell dangerously ill 
while attending our court in Potsdam, making an 
indefinite stay imperative. 

Princess Frederick Charles came day after day from 
Berlin to nurse her daughter, and repeatedly com- 
plained to the Empress that this journeying to and 
fro in the heat of the summer was killing her, an old 
woman. 

As the summer wore on. Princess Frederick Charles 
got in a state approaching nervous prostration, and her 
physicians told her that she must either go and live in 
Potsdam or go to some other country-place ; those 
fatiguing trips had to stop at once. Again she sub- 
mitted the case to her imperial niece, and a third time 
her Majesty expressed merely vague regrets. 

Next day the Princess was carried off to Woerlitz by 
order of her brother, who had been informed of her 
precarious condition. 

" I tremble lest the world may condemn me," she wrote 
to her sick daughter a few days afterward — " you, my 
dear, in sorest need of a mother's care, and I seemingly 
enjoying myself at this ever jolly court. But what 
could I do? His Majesty would not offer me a bed 
at your present home, though, I understand, one hun- 



82 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

dred and fifty of the chambers in the Stadt Schloss are 
unoccupied.'* 

Such brutality seems almost incredible, but Mar- 
shal Eulenburg offered a very lucid explanation. " If 
her Royal Highness had been lodged at the Stadt 
Schloss, it would have been necessary to give accom- 
modations to her maid of honor and to two or three 
maids at the very least. That," said the Count, 
" meant the feeding of four or five persons, which we 
could ill' afford." 

Duchess Calma, the best-looking of the four Augus- 
tenburg sisters, — a very pretty woman with large blue 
eyes, a marvelously fine complexion of pink and white, 
and luxurious blonde hair, often stayed with us during 
the Kaiser's long absences, and was kind and approach- 
able, but painfully embarrassed with strangers. She 
had very little education, and was not naturally bright. 
The same may be said of her husband, Duke Frederick, 
who was really little more than a good-natured dunce, 
subject to fits of disagreeableness. 

To exemplify the penury prevailing in the ducal 
household, I need but mention, that, when his Highness 
was invited to fetch away his wife and little girls, he 
sent his regrets, excusing himself with having nothing to 
wear. 

" The Kaiser's order, that all visiting princes must 
appear in uniform," he wrote, " makes it impossible for 
me to comply with your gracious request. My uniform 
coat and attila are still in good condition, but my 
breeches are sadly in need of new silver braid, and I 
cannot afford to have them done up this year." 

The couple had four lovely children, only a little too 
ethereal were these thin-limbed, narrow-chested young- 
sters. I have often heard them crying with hunger in 
the nursery, and once spoke to the Duchess about it. 

" Ah," said her Highness, " they get more than at 
home. I leave it entirely to their governess. When 
I remonstrate with her about underfeeding my little 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 83 

girls, she makes answer : * I want them to be fine and 
English looking, not like fat German children. Those 
are detestable.' " 

So this senseless mother, who mistrusted her own 
judgment in all things, allowed her poor youngsters to 
be half-starved, that a spleeny governess might have 
her way. To see these little Highnesses stealthily 
munch bread and sausage, the gift of good-hearted 
chamber-women and lackeys, — for they begged food of 
everyone they caught hold of, — was one of the parodies 
on royalty encountered in the German Emperor's 
palace. 

The pretty youngsters with the thin legs and hungry 
eyes appealed to everyone's sympathy, save that of 
their stupid mother and the Kaiser, but as they were 
not his children, William wouldn't say the word that 
would have brought instant relief to the poor young- 
sters. What was it to him whether, or not, one or more 
of his poor relations died, or was doomed to con- 
sumption. 

A royal person often mentioned in these memoirs is 
the Duke of Schleswig. 

Misfortune attended, for many years, the Kaiserin's 
eif orts to get her brother settled. She dearly loved this 
good-hearted but wild boy whose sins against propriety 
she shielded more than once with her own royal person 
when Gunther held forth in the Palais Pour tales and 
the air was thick with rumors of orgies held at that 
doubtful establishment. 

At such times her Majesty used to invite herself to 
breakfast at Gunther's, and the announcement, duly 
published in the newspapers, had a tendency to stop 
the tongues of irreverent babblers. Surely, her Majesty 
would not visit a house where dancing girls were served 
for dessert on shell platters, swimming in cologne water, 
and where champagne was drunk out of slippers ! 

Finally, Gunther engaged himself to the only daugh- 
ter of Philip of Coburg, Princess Dorothy, then a little 



84 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

over fifteen years of age. " She looked like a school 
miss, so innocent and petite," reported Baron Wind- 
heim to her Majesty. He had seen the young lady at 
a dinner given in her and Duke Gunther's honor by our 
Paris ambassador. Others who attended the banquet 
say the Jewish blood of the Koharys is perceptible in 
lier features, and to no great advantage, either. 

While Count Munster's guests were listening to a 
concert. Princess Dorothy was rolling on the floor with 
a couple of big hounds. 

Meanwhile William's unpopularity with his royal 
brethren was on the increase. At the English court, 
it is true, he was tolerated as the " grandson of Queen 
Victoria," but the English public revelled in King 
Edward's dictum: that William was not, and could 
never be a gentleman, or even imitate one. 

Hence his aversion to King George, as displayed 
during the war, and the cruelty of his air raids on 
London and English watering-places, that had so often 
greeted and entertained him. 

Russia mistrusted William. The reasons were ob- 
vious, but the Kaiser refused to see them. In the early 
months of 1914, accordingly, he was forever talking of 
*' punishing Nickey." He could have saved " Nickey's " 
life and that of the Czarina and her children, but be- 
cause he was not on friendly terms with them, he let 
them be thrown into the melting-pot of his blood thirst. 

Italy had small reason for loving William. There- 
fore, "off with his head, so much for Victor." Victor 
was to be discrowned, but the Pope was to be cheated 
also! 

Politics aside, WilHam courted the displeasure of his 
royal colleagues, even filled them with fear, by his readi- 
ness to shower their face with kisses on the slightest 
provocation. One kiss wouldn't do, he thought it neces- 
sary to bestow at least three or four to attest his 
friendship. 

Now, a kiss, not to mention a succession of them, 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 85 

from a person said to be Infected with cancer, is no 
desirable commodity. Do you wonder that kings 
fought shy of Wilham's visits? 

Again, the Kaiser had many vulgar habits, among 
them that of slapping his thighs during conversation. 
The noise he made and the motion itself were nerve- 
racking to some of the older monarchs — the Berlin 
court marshal's office has a safe full of letters to that 
effect, suggesting that the Kaiser's attention be drawn 
to the offensiveness of the habit. But, of course, no one 
dared attempt such a thing as to correct an imperial 
boor. 



CHAPTER VI 

It is essential at this time^ in order to give the world 
a true understanding of the personalities behind the 
Great War, that we become fully acquainted with the 
Kaiserin, as well as the Kaiser, Historians and biog- 
raphers must study to discover whether she was a factor 
in the world tragedy — or merely a victim. It is being 
asserted that she fed the Kaiser^s mania for world 
conquest; that she encouraged it for years as his life 
ambition; and that she demanded it as a heritage for 
her son, the Crown Prince, Therefore, she must stand 
revealed before the penetrating light of historical in- 
vestigation. 

My long years of intimacy with the Kaiserin failed 
to create either affection or pity for her. She is one 
of the most selfish women I ever met. She is inordin- 
ately vain. She has no sympathy for the people ; she 
is an idolater of wealth and a tyrant of the poor. She 
hates Americans ; she tyranizes over her servants — and 
she believes the Hohenzollerns (her children), were 
ordained by God to rule the world with an iron hand. 
But, like every German wife, she feared her husband and 
bowed to his will. 

The Empress is not a pretty woman ; not even among 
daughters of Germany is she entitled to that distinction. 
The once awkward girl has developed into a large 
Frau, strong-limbed, square-footed and broad-shoul- 
dered, as we meet them by the hundred in the capital, 
or in any town in the Fatherland, for that matter. 

She has small grayish-blue eyes, with light, scanty 
lashes and brows — sincerest flattery could not call them 
beautiful, or even pleasing, especially as, for some 

86 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 87 

reason or other, they appear slightly swollen three days 
out of four. Her arms are beautifully modeled, and 
white as alabaster, the hands well taken care of, but too 
large and given to pufRness, a condition which constant 
massage forestalls to some extent, but not wholly. 

If not under the surveillance of the multitude, her 
Majesty walks like a knock-kneed person; at all times 
she prefers to lean on somebody's arm, or on a piece 
of furniture, which tendency gives one an idea that her 
nether limbs are weak despite their superb outward 
development. 

That fine figure, so universally admired, was indeed 
very far from being at that time a product of stays 
and powder, as some ladies of the aristocracy gave out, 
but a luminous reality to which the Kaiser was strongly 
attracted. During the first four or five years of her 
imperial life, Augusta Victoria might have adopted 
Queen Louise's corsetless costume without fear of of- 
fending the most artistic eye. 

In the early nineties, however, she became very fat. 

And alas, that vanity should have induced her to spoil 
her figure, and complexion as well, by submitting to 
various kinds of flesh-reducing treatment, and by using 
all known sorts of cosmetics. 

I dare say some chance observers will endeavor to 
correct my estimate of her Majesty's feet, but in doing 
so these critics really compliment the royal shoemakers' 
perfect art; there are two of these functionaries, both 
natives of Vienna. As to the shoemakers of the Father- 
land, her Majesty would no sooner think of employing 
any of them than she would eat peas with her knife. 

While a man's number seven, American measure, 
might give the Empress supremest comfort, her special 
artists build for the imperial lady foot-gear intended to 
defy normal conclusions as to dimensions. 

Her Majesty pays from a hundred to a hundred and 
fifty florins for these works of art, which are the only 
items of toilet she hates to cast oif, and, indeed, wears 



88 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

until brushes and creams of all sorts fail to bring back 
waning luster. 

They are beautiful to look at (the very envious must 
admit that), but, oh, the pains they give their vain 
owner ! 

The Empress' broad face, though at times slightly 
disfigured by freckles, would not be displeasing except 
for the very red nose, conspicuous whenever she appears 
in public. And that red nose is only one of the ugly 
results of feet screwed out of all original resemblance. 
I am convinced of it, because I never saw her Majesty 
with a red nose at home, even at periods when she was 
suffering from a cold. 

That additional blot appears only when least wanted, 
at the theater, on the throne, on horseback, though 
there is really small excuse for wearing the tightest 
of boots — we call them " Scotch boots " in commemora- 
tion of a pleasant custom they had in the land of kilts 
and bagpipes to promote confessions in criminal pro- 
ceedings — under the long-flowing robe. Still, in mount- 
ing or dismounting, the royal feet might show, and her 
Majesty desires to be on the safe side with respect to 
physical charms and shortcomings. 

To sum up : her Majesty is a tall woman of imposing 
carriage, with a face that is weak rather than intel- 
lectual. Having learned how to and ever mindful of 
the desired end, that to smile upon the populace and 
to affect a certain dignified air in public, has in it a ring 
of true courtesy, no matter what people, who, like my- 
self, are behind the scenes, may think, she is always 
sure of a " good reception," as the newspapers say, for 
her condescension, though studied. 

As the eighth Henry's daughter posed as the virgin 
Queen, so does the German Empress pose as the ideal 
Hausfrau ; but while the first succeeded only in deluding 
the unthinking, the present august lady has tricked the 
entire civilized world into crediting her with fanciful 
domestic virtues* 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER B9 

I am told that (for many years before the war), one 
could not open a magazine or a newspaper, printed 
either in Europe, America, Asia or Africa, -not to forget 
Australia, without encountering some such article as 
*' The Kaiserin as a Mother," " The German Empress 
Investigating Her Kitchen," " Auguste Victoria Super- 
intending Her Linen Chest." Books of travel, the 
ABC for the young, and religious tracts alike teem 
with allusions to her Majesty's facilities in the line of 
sewing, child-bearing, darning and plain cooking. 

As a matter of fact, the Empress has visited the lower 
regions of her residential castles where the very bad 
indigestibles that grace the imperial table are prepared, 
but once in her life (so the servants tell me), and on 
that occasion she deigned to look into the department 
where the linen is kept, but never more. 

It was a great and wonderful event, however, while it 
lasted, and the royal housekeeper, and her host of 
white-capped and ditto-aproned girls and women prob- 
ably passed an hour of supreme anxiety lest the great 
lady should know enough to find fault with things as 
they were. In this unpleasant anticipation they were 
luckily disappointed, however, and aside from the 
" cheap copy " it made for the press, generally despised 
but often appealed to by royalty, the visit resulted 
merely in a single recommendation: It was ordered 
and decreed by her Imperial and Royal Majesty that 
thereafter the all-highest table linen be marked in a 
different-colored thread from the most gracious bed- 
clothes. From time immemorial at the Prussian court, 
table coverings and sheets alike have been adorned 
with a red crown. 

The only thing about the house which really interests 
her Majesty is the daily menu, and that its composition 
be agreeable to her as well as to the Emperor. To that 
end the " Speisenfolge " proposed is placed on her 
dressing-table nightly, so she may strike out or add 
anything she likes. 



00 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

But while not a Hausfrau in the accepted sense of the 
word, Auguste Victoria unfortunately inherited from 
her mother certain disagreeable traits that in a more or 
less pronounced degree are found in the majority of 
German women, qualities dignified as positive virtues by 
many, and which poets and like irresponsible persons 
not unf requently laud to the skies. 

Her Majesty is peevish, unjust and petty in the 
treatment of her retinue, the very best reason why the 
royal household in the Neues Palais or ScJiloss is as 
little free from vexations and even domestic brawls as 
other institutions of the kind, be they extensive or small, 
in Berlin, Potsdam or anywhere in the Fatherland for 
that matter. 

Sprung from nonpuissant stock and reared in com- 
parative poverty, Auguste Victoria seems to abhor the 
very conditions that gave her discomfort in younger 
days. 

In her Majesty's eyes an untitled servant is of no 
more consequence than a beggar, and that poverty and 
uncleanliness are necessarily synonymous terms is one 
of her fixed ideas. 

In the majority of Berlin households those obligato 
squabbles begin in the bright and early morning and the 
Empress would not be German unless she followed that 
fashion and kept up a continuous performance till 
night. Every nation, you must know, boasts but one 
sort of clay for high and humble, and loftiness of 
station does not count much when a glove-buttoner is 
missing or a glass of seltzer has been allowed to flatten. 

It was on such occasion that the Princess of Mein- 
ingen's sweeping criticism of her sister-in-law, viz. : that 
" Dona " (that is her Majesty's pet name in the family) 
" is the most arrogant and pretentious Princess on any 
throne in Christendom," is borne out in its most dis- 
agreeable aspects. A peep into the Empress' apart- 
ments on almost any morning of the year will explain. 

Usually the day's scolding and annoyance is ushered 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 01 

in by the finding of certain memoranda on slips of 
paper, or visiting cards, which the chamber-women dis- 
cover when making up the Empress' bed. There are 
strict orders that these notes must be placed on her 
Majesty's toilet table without delay, for they are in the 
all-highest handwriting and pencilled to assist the royal 
memory. 

I shudder when I think what a mercenary in the court 
marshal's office could do with some of these brief feuil- 
letons — records of imperial weakness and malice. How 
the autograph fiends would fight and bid for them at 
Christy's ! 

^' Fifty guineas for her Majesty's complaint as to 
' his Majesty's ill-temper on the eve of Bismarck's dis- 
missal.' " 

" One hundred guineas for * the Kaiser's remarks on 
the Duchess of Aosta in his sjeep,' taken down verbatim 
by his august spouse, who sat up in bed horrified." 
For such and similar affairs those tell-tale " memos " 
register in springy, excited monosyllables and unsteady 
letters — once in a while. And then, of course, they were 
written down to aid her Majesty in making " copy " for 
her diary; not at all were they intended for the court 
marshal's eyes, but they come to him just the same, in 
waste baskets, crumpled and torn, or riding upon the 
sharp tongues of his numerous spies and flatterers. 
The notes indited for that functionary's benefit usually 
specify some misconduct on a servant's part in this 
style : " Spoon tasted of silver powder," or " Nolte ap- 
peared to have been drinking last night." 

Nolte was one of her Majesty's Kammerdiener (valet 
de chambre), and a man more sober and industrious one 
cannot find among a thousand of his class. Still, he 
may unwittingly have given offense to the all-exacting 
royal lady, and, thinking it over in bed, while perhaps 
waiting for her husband to come, she put down the first 
accusation that occurred to her. 

After she herself got through scolding poor Nolte, he 



02 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

was to be bullied, in addition, by his superior officer 
Baron von Lyncker. The latter gentleman, who was 
general overseer of the servants' hall, wasted at least an 
hour of his valuable time daily listening to explanations 
of these memoranda on the part of her Majesty, and 
the investigations following, fruitless . most of them, 
lasted even longer. 

The " memos " disposed of other vexations of life. 
Like many of her sex, " Dona " would rather read for- 
bidden books than the sort that languishes on every 
drawing-room table, but, of course, the Kaiser must 
know nothing of that. Imagine the job of keeping any- 
thing from William, whose bump of meddlesomeness is 
so abnormally developed ! Surely, no one will blame the 
Empress for innocently deceiving a husband who would 
as lief go through her pockets as send a bill to the 
Chancellor. 

She fools him constantly — has to do it, in order not 
to die of ennui — and does it quite cleverly, too, by find- 
ing her hiding-places for her " Marcel Prevosts " and 
" Heinrich Lee " all the time, but, unfortunately, her 
Majesty is apt to forget overnight the exact locations 
of her literary treasures. That being the case, and it 
happens quite frequently, her chambermaids and at- 
tendants at the toilet come in for a dreadful half-hour 
of scolding and insinuation, the Kaiserin assuming, as 
a matter of course, that one of the women or girls took 
the book to read, or for a worse purpose even: they 
might want to turn it over to her husband's court 
marshal ! 

The poor females are dragged from their breakfast 
or their work to give detailed accounts of what they 
have been doing for the last twenty-four hours, where 
they keep their valuables, etc. Likewise, they are re- 
quired to furnish their august mistress with views on 
literature held by themselves and by people nearest to 
jthem, the inquisition usually winding up with a per* 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 93 

emptory demand that they must find the lost article 
within a certain time or suffer dismissal. 

Like her forbidden books, the Empress' private 
letters are a constant source of annoyance to her 
retinue. Having a habit of leaving the most intimate 
missives lying around on toilet tables and in bandboxes, 
the Kaiserin never hesitates to accuse the person on 
duty in the rooms of reading them, and of spying upon 
her, when at last she recollects the incident; but as 
such scenes are matters of daily occurrence, the host of 
officials and waiting women deem them hardly worth 
talking about. 

Alas, and alack, for the chimeras of this world! 
Common folks have troubles of their own, and, piqued 
by a thousand and one vexations and discomforts, 
torment others into a like unhappy state ; it is a detest- 
able yet not unpardonable habit; but what about the 
rich and mighty causing gloom and dejection for the 
mere pleasure of the thing? 

Her Majesty is a very religious woman, and it is 
but natural that she commands her people to attend 
divine service on Sundays. With this wish the great 
majority would gladly conform, but for the fact that 
they have absolutely no time for their devotions. The 
men and women must be at their Majesty's beck and 
call until the very second they drive out; that is, up 
to 9.45 A.M. 

Her Majesty decided to arrange for a special service 
to be held at the palace, and we ladies of the court 
received the agreeable commission to report truants. 
It is a disgusting duty, but we had to follow orders, 
and most unpleasant contentions arose when our grand 
mistress. Countess Brockdorff, took a hand in the game 
by rising at an early hour and watching things from 
her window, unknown to anybody. In that case not 
only the absentees got into trouble, but also we, who 
failed to tell on them. 



94 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Upon her Excellency's denunciation, myself and a 
poor chambermaid were up for a scolding once, and 
while I was inventing excuses for Pauline the best way 
I could, the girl burst out: "May it please your 
Majesty to remember that this going to church costs 
us an hour of sleep." 

" And when do you have to rise in order to get 
through with your work and attend service? " demanded 
the Empress, raising her voice. 

" At five o'clock, yj3ur Majesty." 

" That is not so bad." 

" No," said the girl, " not for those who idle from 
one year's end to the other." 

This pert answer might have resulted in Pauline's 
dismissal, had she not immediately sacrificed a round 
five-mark piece for Augusta Victoria's church building 
fund. Countess Brockdorff had already obtained leave 
to bounce her, but that act of generosity saved her head. 
The Kaiserin cannot be angry long with a person who 
contributes a brick to some new church, but members of 
the household who refuse to be bled have an unhappy 
time of it. 

The plate goes round three, four or five times per 
annum, and the amounts bestowed are carefully re- 
corded to speak for or against the different parties, 
as the case might be. And that happens in a house 
where the servants are not only badly paid, but must 
needs forego the greater part of the presents domestics 
in ordinary establishments receive on stated occasions. 

Sometimes, for no reason whatever, she takes a 
sudden dislike to perspns and then she will not rest 
until they are discharged. So it happened that the 
nurse of little Prince Augustus, a girl of twenty-five, 
Emma Ruter by name, received orders to quit. 

The young woman, daughter of a preacher in West- 
phalia, had been attached to the nursery for eight 
years ; she loved the children and was beloved by them. 
Both Majesties had expressed satisfaction with her 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 95 

work on divers occasions, and Emma fondly imagined 
that she was fixed for life, especially when on Christmas 
day the Empress had given her Prince Augustus' pic- 
ture, bearing the all-highest autograph, together with 
some pious motto. 

When the notice of dismissal came, Emma went at 
once to Countess Brockdorif to ask for an explanation, 
but her Excellency refused to enter into details. " I 
am acting under her Majesty's instructions." That 
was all she would say. 

Five minutes later the girl came running into the 
nursery, with dishevelled hair and staring eyes. She 
threw herself on the floor, and her moans attracted half 
the household. The doctors said wounded pride and 
disappointment had caused her to be temporarily de- 
ranged. She was sent to an asylum. A week later 
poor Emma was a raving maniac. She died in a strait- 
jacket at the end of the year. 

I asked Countess Brockdorif, Count Eulenburg and 
Baron Lyncker why this girl had been discharged. 
All three had but praises for her, all three regretted 
the sad end of so worthy a person, none of the three 
knew what prompted her Majesty's displeasure. She 
probably did not know herself. 

And right here I approach an almost limitless sub- 
ject, that of Augusta Victoria's inordinate vanity. 

" I wonder if Solomon the Wise ever knew a person 
half so vain as my granddaughter-in-law," the late 
Empress Augusta used to say, adding, with a smile: 
" Of course he did, else why should the authorship of 
the Ecclesiastes, with its quaint truism, * All is vanity,* 
be imputed to him ? " 

There is probably not a brand of cosmetics, or similar 
application intended to beautify and improve the com- 
plexion or forestall and arrest adiposity, or any con- 
coction whatever claiming this or that or a hundred 
things in the line of averting blemishes or amending 
one's good points, which the Empress has not employed 



i^6 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

at one time or another, either externally or internally. 
The cupboards in the bathroom in Potsdam as well as 
in Berlin were veritable museums of curiously-shaped 
and highly-labeled bottles and pots and retorts, bearing 
the names of chemists the world over. Some are half- 
filled, others remain unopened, and all were procured 
at more or less heavy expense in money and time wasted, 
for the Kaiser and court marshal must, of course, know 
nothing of these carryings on, and not unfrequently 
strangers are pressed into service to procure the latest 
cosmetical novelties in vogue among Parisiennes or the 
inmates of Turkish harems. 

The most beautiful piece of furniture in her 
Majesty's dressing-room was the washstand — a great 
marble slab of perfect black, resting on solid silver legs, 
the chefs-d'oeuvre of some London silversmiths. Above 
was a mirror, with a richly ornamented, broad silver 
frame, set in the wall. A big table groans under the 
weight of innumerable bottles and platters, filled with 
toilet waters, medicines and a thousand and one things 
— jugs of milk and a plateful of cucumbers, bran water 
at the side of Ambree creme, fat powders and others, 
vaseline, eaux of a hundred denominations, vinegars of 
all brands, rose waters, " electricity drops," opium and 
what not. 

Once the Emperor strayed into the room, and, seeing 
and smelling, this exhibition, remarked : " I did not know 
the Scjiloss apotheke had moved up here. And what is 
that ? " he added, pointing to the cucumber plate ; " are 
you making yourself salad between times? I see you 
have plenty of vinegars and oils around." 

The Empress sometimes attends luncheon in grand 
toilet and decollete, a habit English women pronounce 
shocking and Americans regard as ridiculous in the 
extreme. It is, however, nothing of the kind in Ger- 
many, where evening dress is quite the proper thing, if 
not the obligatory one, on all occasions of ceremony or 
social intercourse of a higher order. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 97 

Altogether there were four principal meals at the 
Berlin court, three of which were usually attended by 
guests and the highest officials of the household. The 
Kaiserin made it a point to appear on all these occa- 
sions in different styles of dress. 

As a matter of fact, Augusta Victoria wears seven 
or eight different gowns every twenty-four hours, and 
tries on from ten to twelve to see which suit her best. 
If, for instance, a sea-green demitoilet is ordered for 
the theater, the wardrobe women must arrange all 
dresses of that color and description on the numerous 
skeleton puppets that line the walls in her Majesty's 
clothes presses, each robe having its own set of accom- 
paniments as to stockings, shoes, petticoats, wraps and 
headgear. 

About an hour and a half before the carriage starts, 
the Empress comes in to inspect her treasures and to 
decide what she will wear. But that does not end 
matters. Frequently, when her toilet is nearly finished, 
the august lady discovers that the shade chosen is not 
becoming to her on that particular day. " It makes 
me look old," or " I am afraid this color will not do 
under the electric light — what does your Excellency 
think.? " This to Countess Brockdorff, grand mistress. 
Of course, that lady agrees with the implied opinion, 
and " Away with this confounded toggery ! " as Napo- 
leon the Great said when divesting himself of his coro- 
nation robes. Another costume, with its numerous 
accessories, is brought from the mighty closets, and the 
process of robing is renewed, while probably two thou- 
sand people or more, having paid speculators' prices for 
the honor of sitting under the same roof with the im- 
perial couple, are loyally wondering why the overture 
is delayed. 

The Kaiserin seldom, wears the same dress twice 
unless it has previously undergone a radical change in 
her own workshop, where she keeps from four to six 
dressmakers busy all the year roun^, On an average, 



98 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

her Majesty uses up, or at least buys, from two hundred 
to two hundred and twenty-five costumes in the course 
of a year, some costing as little as one hundred dollars. 
The bills for others, by their size, give her chief of 
cabinet. Baron von Mirbach, palpitations. 

Lately the Kaiserin's want of decision caused Berlin 
shopkeepers to regard a royal command to send goods 
on approval in anything but a joyful spirit; and small 
wonder, for nine times out of ten their good offices, 
expense and loss of time are thrown away. 

Thus, to mention only one instance, the Empress 
ordered four or five metropolitan business houses, mak- 
ing a specialty of infants' ware and furniture, to 
dispatch to the palace a variety of cradles and small 
brass bedsteads suitable for the child she expected. As 
may be imagined, the firms so honored fairly outdid 
themselves in the race to furnish the finest and latest 
on hand. Twelve hours after the royal command had 
been given out, a succession of furniture vans rolled 
into our courtyard, and a bazaar, filled with lovely 
creations in the layette line — as the salespeople uni- 
formly put it — was soon established in one of the big 
halls. 

Among these treasures her Majesty wandered for a 
week or ten days, selecting this or that one minute and 
rejecting it an hour later. The embarrass de riches 
bewildered her, and, though knowing full well that she 
had only five hundred marks to spend, the very costliest 
offerings, exceeding her modest stipend twice or even 
three times over, engaged her fancy to the exclusion of 
all others. 

The shopkeepers who had denuded their warerooms 
and show windows of chefs-d'oeuvre to please the Em- 
press, got tired after waiting a week, and remonstrated 
with the court marshal, petitioning for the return of 
their goods. That gentleman explained to her Majesty 
that she must decide without further delay ; but it was 
not until the Berliners had actually begun to remove 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER '99 

their property, a fortnight after sending the things on 
approval, that Augusta Victoria chose among the 
remainder. 

One day Grandmaster von Mirbach received the 
Vienna tailor's and milliner's bill with its four noughts, 
and florin at that ! " The poor Baron," says an eye- 
witness, " was nearly knocked silly when he read the 
figures. * Woher nehmen und nicht stehlen .'^ ' ('How 
can I pay this without resorting to thievery? ') he 
cried, after partly recovering his composure ; ' our 
treasury is as empty as a coronet's who spends his 
allowance in advance; I hardly know how to pay her 
Majesty's laundry bills for the ensuing three months.' " 

Kammerherr von der Knestbeck spoke up at this 
juncture. " The Kaiser," he said, " remarked this 
morning that he was quite unable to decide on a birth- 
day present for her Majesty. Why not propose that 
he assume payment of this bill? It will save his 
Majesty the trouble of choosing among a hundred and 
one offerings by the different purveyors and right your 
Excellency's budget, which is, after all, the main 
thing." 

Of course, Herr von Mirbach jumped at this chance, 
and the ball wag set rolling after the old-approved style, 
viz.: the entire palace camarilla combined to persuade 
the Emperor " that it was his all-gracious will and com- 
mand to present the Kaiserin, on the occasion of her 
birthday, with three certain robes de chambre," the 
price of which exceeded his chancellor's annual salary. 

Many readers will think Kaiser William too proud 
and self-assertive a personage to be wheedled. Let 
those doubters consider the court recipe for such acts 
of gentle inveiglement and own themselves sold. It 
runs somewhat after the fashion of Genesis, chapter IV, 
verse 18: "And Irad begat MehujaeKand Mehujael 
begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech," etc. 
Herr von der Knesebeck told JBaron Mirbach, Baron 
Mirbach told the Kaiser's court marshal, the court 



100 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

marshal told the master of ceremonies, the master of 
ceremonies told the rojal house marshal, the royal 
house marshal told the vice-grand-master of ceremonies, 
the vice-grand-master of ceremonies told the seneschal, 
the seneschal told the chief of cabinet, the chief of 
cabinet told the chief of the maison militaire, the chief 
of the maison militaire told the imperial adjutants and 
the whole set dinned it into the all-highest ears until 
the Emperor thought it his own " most gracious " idea, 
and consequently little short of divine inspiration. 

The three dressing gowns were yanked into the royal 
palace — one literally came off the Kaiserin's back — and 
found immediate favor with William, who was just then 
contemplating; his order of cabinet, creating the half- 
rococo, half-savage Prussian court dress. His Majesty 
ordered the bill paid without looking at it, and Augusta 
Victoria and her court marshal breathed easy once 
more. 

The winter's round of festivities usually left th^ 
Empress' exchequer in more than the ordinary state of 
exhaustion, and her Majesty's noble resolve never to 
don a gown more than twice would certainly have to 
be amended in the summer months by some such proviso 
as " state of finances permitting," if it was not for the 
Grand Turk. 

As usual, precious porcelains, turned out by the 
royal Berlin works, had found their way by New^ Year 
into the splendid harem on the bosom of the sweet 
waters, and the fat sultans and kadyns returned the 
compliment by selecting for the Frankish Empress the 
very choicest of Oriental cloths, linens, and gauzes. 
These presents to her Majesty arrived regularly in 
April, or the beginning of May, each year, and there 
being whole bales of the various textures and shades, 
Augusta Victoria was a very happy woman in 
consequence. 

The number of seamstresses in the establishment was 
always largely increased in the spring, and I have seen 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 101 

as many as forty wielders of needle and thread working 
under Frau von Haake's nominal direction after the 
Sultan's presents arrived. All heads of departments in 
the palace, it should be remembered, must be noble-born, 
and while the lady of the bed chamber knows no more 
how to fit a waist or " hang " a skirt than I do of such 
things, or of the mountains and canals on Mars, for that 
matter, she is excellently well qualified to find fault with 
low-born menials that do understand them. 

With tales of royal worldliness on the one hand and 
of woe on the other I could fill many pages of these 
memoirs, but there would be little profit in such reading 
aside from a tendency to emphasize the fact that it is 
absurd to credit those born in the purple with a higher 
intellect, more finesse, more charity, less pettiness and 
less penury than ordinary mortals. However, I will 
not close this chapter without recording one signal 
triumph her Majesty's much- abused women experienced 
in the course of years, and at her cost too. 

When Augusta Victoria was en bonne csperance for 
the seventh time in twelve years, she selected for the 
reception of the Queens of the Netherlands a particu- 
larly ugly toilet — a blue satin dress with an orange 
front and trimmings. The latter, real masterpieces of 
the embroiderer's art, were very difficult to sew on ; but 
that notwithstanding, her Majesty ordered them re- 
moved and differently placed three times, compelling the 
seamstresses to work the whole Sunday until late in the 
night. 

Of course, the girls were wroth, and on that account 
not at all displeased to see that the costume, which had 
given them so much trouble, was frightfully unbecoming 
to their mistress when at last she was arrayed in the 
glaring colors. To make matters still worse for the 
royal lady, her complexion was in a sadly muddled state 
just then. We Hofdamen felt deeply chagrined about 
all this, I assure you. However, the Empress had her- 
self to blame, as she selected the colors against every- 



102 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

body's advice, insisting upon' their entire suitable- 
ness. 

We were just debating in our own circle whether it 
would be prudent to tell her Majesty what an out- 
rageous figure she cut, when a remark by little Wil- 
helmina, overheard by one of the maids and in duty 
reported to Countess von Brockdorff, led to an instant 
decision and caused the obnoxious dress to be removed 
without delay. 

Think of it ! That royal enfant terrible said to her 
mother, on reaching her apartments and probably 
thinking herself out of earshot : " It strikes me ma tante 
looks like one of those cockatoos our soldiers bringjrom 
Sumatra." 

The mot passed from mouth to mouth in the palace, 
and its appropriateness was generally admitted, under 
the breath, of course. But the cockatoo story did not 
remain unknown to her, having come to the all-highest 
ears, the Emperor's, after much traveling, and William 
repeated it to " Dona " on the occasion of a domestic 
row. 

As this anecdote indicates, the Empress has little 
notion of the suitableness of colors. She wears all in 
rotation. 

In the matter of hats, Augusta Victoria was easily 
the best-dressed woman in Europe. As Princess 
William, Princess Imperial, and during her early years 
as Empress, the Kaiserin patronized Berlin milliners 
exclusively, and the result was not encouraging. 

Here is what the Princess of Meiningen said when her 
mother, the Empress Frederick, engaged upon that 
dangerous journey to Paris : " If you love Augusta and 
myself, bring us hats, hats, hats, hats! They make 
beautiful millinery ornaments in this town, but don't 
know how to put them together. To me a German 
bonnet always looks like next of kin to a recruit's 
fatigue cap, while Berlin hats, even the most elaborate, 
geem to be fashioned a la Pickelhaube." 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 103 

The same idea pervaded the unusually blunt speech 
of the Princess Philip of Coburg, who had not yet dis- 
graced herself with her Colonel of Hussars, when, at the 
close of his Vienna visit, the Kaiser, while taking leave 
of her Royal Highness, incidentally remarked that he 
was unable to decide what to bring his wife. 

" Get her some hats ; she needs them, poor thing," 
cried King Leopold's eldest daughter, who is credited 
with having inherited all his wicked traits ; " a mere 
private woman as I am, I would not exchange my 
cforonet for the German diadem if at the same time I 
were compelled to wear the monstrous headgear your 
Berliners turn out." 

The sally struck home, the more so as William has 
always entertained a high opinion of this Princess, who, 
it must not be forgotten, is the elder sister of Stephanie, 
widow of the late Crown Prince Rudolph. 

" His Majesty," said Grandmaster Count Eulenburg, 
" reddened at first and seemed inclined to answer 
sharply, but, after a little reflection, confessed com- 
plete fgnorance of the subject, though all present knew 
that he made it his business to order the Kaiserin about 
in matters of toilet as well as in other respects. ' Ad- 
mitting, cousin, that you are correct in what you say,' 
his Majesty finally remarked, ' what am I going to do 
about it? I have not the time to run around millinery 
shops at the moment of leaving, and if I order a 
number of bonnets to be sent to the Burg, the bills 
will be of such magniture as to break my treasurer's 
heart, and perhaps my own, too.' 

" We all laughed at this suggestion," continued his 
Excellency. "Her Royal Highness fairly shook with 
merriment as she exclaimed, semi-tragically : ' For the 
Lord's sake, William, do not become to us in Vienna 
what the Tecks are to the Prince of Wales in London, 
or (this with fine sarcasm), the Lippes to a certain 
King of Prussia ! To forestall such a calamity let me 
offer my humble services. With your Majesty's per- 



104 SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 

mission, I will drive with one of your gentlemen (here 
her Rojal Highness's eyes lit upon the stalwart form 
of our friend Moltke) to my own purveyors, buy what 
is pretty and not too extravagant iii price, and bring 
my finds in triumph to the station, where we will meet 
an hour from now in our waiting-room. Is that a 
bargain? ' 

" The Kaiser," Eulenburg wound up his story, 
" sealed the agreement by kissing her Royal Highness's 
white hands and arms; but she took him by the head 
and applied three right royal smacks upon his mouth, 
those to reconcile to him for the osculations of state 
that he would have to give and endure later in the day, 
as her Royal Highness put it." 

What a time we had at the Neues Palais, when the 
Kaiser arrived with six bandboxes filled with " that 
woman's " selections of finery ! Pardon : it is " that 
woman " no longer ; we have discovered her name, and 
without consulting the Almanach de Gotha, at that. 
Perish the memory of Stephaine's treachery : " Her 
Royal Highness, the Princess Philip," of all women, has 
the sweetest taste and kindliest disposition ! All-highest 
lips uttered these honeyed sentiments, and soon the 
whole SchlosSy metaphorically speaking, 'was at the feet 
of the august Viennese, who, an hour before, had been 
considered too frivqle for even casual mention. 

Reputations are quickly made and lost at court. 
Play into their Majesties' hands, contribute to their 
charities, fawn upon their little weaknesses and you are 
persona grata in a jiffy: exhibit the slightest bit of 
originality conflicting with the maddening humdrum of 
accepted notons, seek solace from the dreary occupa- 
tions of the average court life in hemispheres where 
goldsticks and bigwigs are not wanted, or, worse still, 
derided, and your name is put upon the index whether 
it stands on the first leaves of the continental peerage 
or not. 

But once more let me repeat — whatever we may think 



SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 105 

about this vain woman, her love for William is pathetic. 
When he is away on his travels, she sleeps with his 
photograph on the pillow where his blonde head ought 
to rest, the full length picture being stuck under the 
quilt up to the chin. When he is at home, she under- 
goes a thousand pains to make herself attractive ac- 
cording to his ever-varying notions. 



CHAPTER VII 

The world has a right to know the HohenzoUerns — 
though I realize that I am treading on delicate ground 
when I enter into the domestic relations in the Kaiser's 
household. But my many years as Chief of the Royal 
Household, qualify me to speak with authority. 

I have already mentioned that the Kaiser, in^ his 
brusque egotism, showed very little respect for his 
wife and that she frequently confided her troubles, even 
to the extent of weeping over her unhappiness. His 
treatment of her is an index to his character. But I 
know that she loved him and was very jealous of him. 
He did not show himself capable of loving any one but 
himself. 

The Kaiser is adored by his wife. That Augusta Vic- 
toria's love for him is only equalled by her fear of him 
is perhaps not his fault. He was heir to a mighty 
Crown when he married her — she, the daughter of a 
penniless pretender who had to sign away his hereditary 
rights to the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein before 
the engagement was ratified by the old Kaiser, and 
Prussia granted him the indemnity of $75,000 per 
year, on which the family was struggling, and which 
the Schleswigs may lose bye and bye when the Allies 
put the financial screws on. 

The consciousness of this humiliating bargain on the 
one hand, and of William's overpowering egotism on 
the other, have sufficed to make a wife, constitutionally 
not without energy, like wax in his hand. 

Sitting one night in the Royal box at the Opera 
House with Duke Gunther of Schleswig, I heard him 
laugh immoderately at the remark of a stage hero, who 
being asked: " Do you ever quarrel? " briskly replied: 
" No, not if I have my own way." 

106 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 107 

" It reminds me so much of my beloved brother-in- 
law and sister," said His Highness ; " they never fight 
because he sees to it that his slightest whims are obeyed, 
nay, more, anticipated." 

That fits the case exactly : William forever enforcing 
his own will, his notions, his idiosyncrasies, and down- 
right crazes by sheer force of sublime egomania; the 
Kaiserin perpetually in a flutter to carry out his de- 
mands and make everybody else dance to the imperial 
piper's tune! 

I remarked that the Empress is very jealous of her 
husband. One day when the court was established in 
Berlin, I undertook to present to her Majesty " the 
all-submissive " compliments of the Countess Brock- 
dorff, asking leave to be excused from second breakfast. 

" Tell her Excellency that she has my permission, 
and with pleasure, and that nothing would suit me 
better than to have her and the whole lot of them stay 
away from my table all the year round," said Auguste 
Victoria, with a haughty shrug of the shoulders. 

Being one of the " lot," I was surprised and vested 
at this outburst. " If that remark was intended seri- 
ously, I beg to offer my resignation," I said, " and I 
am sure the Countess and other associates and all func- 
tionaries will follow suit, seeing that, for some unknown 
reason, we have had the misfortune to incur your Im- 
perial Majesty's displeasure." 

" No, no ! " cried the Kaiserin ; " I am very fond 
of you, and there is not one in the suite whom I dis- 
like ; but. Baroness, can you not see that a woman, even 
an Empress, wants her husband to herself once in a 
while.? 

"I have begged his Majesty a thousand times to 
take at least one meal beside breakfast alone with me 
and the children; I reminded him of the happy family 
life in his own father's house, where, except when guests 
were present, the Crown Prince and Princess and all 
the children occupied one table, while the suite sat at 



108 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

another. So both master and retinue enjoyed perfect 
freedom at this pleasantest of rendezvous; but the 
Kaiser will not hear of it. To compare his court 
with that of his parents is as ridiculous as to liken the 
establishment of some petty contemporary Prince to 
that of Louis XIV, he says." 

" According to the Duchess of Orleans, Charlotte 
Elizabeth of Bavaria, the Grand Monarque would have 
no one at his table but members of the Royal family," 
I observed. 

The Empress rose excitedly. "Is that authentic?" 
she cried. 

" Your Majesty will find it in the Duchess's memoirs^ 
and no doubt, also, in some of her letters to the first 
Queen of Prussia, kept in our archives." 

" I am under great obligations to you for these ad- 
vices," said her Majesty, holding out her hand, which 
I kissed ; " my good knesebeck shall look the matter up 
today — at once. Do not fail to send for him, I beg of 
you, when going out. But," continued the Royal lady, 
and the expression of her face fell, " will the Kaiser 
care one way or another.? You know he thinks it due 
to his position to maintain a certain state at all times ; 
and so our meals — the few we have together — are made 
semi-public functions by the presence of officials and 
strangers, while my poor children are perpetually kept 
up-stairs and hardly see their father." 

" I am afraid the Kaiser will never take interest in 
the children until they actually enter military service," 
said the Empress to me, after I had read to her an 
article reporting his Majesty's speech on the occasion 
of Prince Adalbert's entry into the navy. Of course, 
I politely disagreed with her Majesty on that point, 
but at the same time could not help thinking it would 
be a good thing if these fears were realized. 

Imagine a father taking his ten-year-old stripling 
by the hand, and, after presenting him to a regiment 
pf gray-beards, say to them; "This moment, when 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 109 

Prince Adalbert becomes one of you, is of the most 
eminent importance to the entire history of the Father- 
land." 

Who would blame a boy, after that, for overbearing 
conduct and disinclination for study? If, at the age of 
ten, he be a historic personage, to whom old and tried 
men must look up as to an idol, a molder of the nation's 
destinies, what is the use of further effort? Elagabalus 
became Roman Emperor at the age of fourteen yet 
had to wait four years before he was recognized as 
a god. 

How did the Kaiser " spend " his time? I will quote 
a rough estimate, gathered from the Kaiser's printed 
calendars published for the benefit of court officials, 
body-servants, and newspapers, minutely setting forth 
how and where his Majesty spent his time, or was sup- 
posed to spend it. This seems to indicate that in the 
course of a year he is home about one hundred days — 
that is, for one hundred days he lives with her Majesty 
under the same roof; but this circumstance does not 
in any way indicate that their Majesties take their 
meals together, or even see each other daily, except 
in bed and at breakfast. I clip at random one of those 
daily programs : 

9.15 a.m. Report by the chief of the military cabinet. 

10.30 a.m. Report by the Chancellor. 

12.30 p.m. Audience to newly-appointed army of- 
ficers. Luncheon on the train. 

2 p.m. Departure for hunt at Count Finkenstein's. 
At midnight, return to the Neues Palais. 

Or take another day : 

9 a.m. Review of the regiment on the Born- 

stedter Field. 

1.30 p.m. Luncheon in the mess-room. 

6 p.m. Dinner with the officers of the Garde du 
Corps. Hour of return not stated. 

The reader perceives an interval of several hours 
between luncheon and dinner, which might be devoted 



110 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

to wife and children ; but it must not be forgotten that 
a person so continually on the move as the Emperor 
needs a corresponding amount of rest, repose, and 
freshening up, even though in the bright lexicon of 
William, there may be no such word as knocking off. 
Unofficially, the Kaiser retired to his dressing-room 
after luncheon, went to his little bachelor bed, slept 
an hour and a half, and then jumped into a hot bath, 
followed by an ablution of cold sea-water. That, of 
course, put new vigor into him, and made him ready 
for the evening's campaign, but his family see him not 
in the interim. 

While not particularly loving toward his wife, the 
Emperor honors her with excessive jealousy, and is 
beside himself with rage if a man-servant, ever so in- 
nocently, looks at her Majesty when she is dressed in 
a decollette costume. As Napoleon bounced M. Leroy, 
the Worth of his times, for complimenting Marie Louise 
on her fine shoulders, so William dealt unmercifully 
with officials and servants who ventured to look at his 
wife. 

One day while the Kaiser was on the way to Dessau, 
her Majesty went to bed early in the afternoon out of 
sheer chagrin because she had not been allowed to ac- 
company her husband, and, while reading a novel by 
lamp-light, she was disturbed by a stealthy noise at 
the door. 

It made her sit up in eager expectation. Could it 
be possible that the Emperor had reconsidered his de- 
cision, and had returned to take her along at first 
promised.? Augusta Victoria prepared to look extra 
charming; but who shall describe her terror, when, 
instead of the expected husband, the black curly head 
of a man-servant, bearing a load of fire-wood on his 
shoulder, appeared, and cautiously spied about to see 
if he might enter. 

The Empress gave a scream of rage and agony, 
while a crash, as if a hundred-weight of sticks had 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 111 

come to the ground, and hurrying footsteps, told the 
fate of the transgressor. 

Several hours later the whole palace knew that Jo- 
hann, the wood-boy, had been instantly dismissed with- 
out compensation for his loss of pension, and a bad 
" character " into the bargain, while next morning an 
autograph letter from his Majesty arrived, command- 
ing that henceforth no male servant should enter the 
joint bedroom or the Kaiserin's dressing-room, all the 
work, including wood and water carrying, taking up 
of carpets, etc., being thrown upon the maids. 

This incident had a sequel for, her Majesty being as 
fastidious about girls in her room (when the Kaiser 
is present) as William was about man-servants, was 
then obliged to make her own fire in the grate on chilly 
mornings whenever her husband was at home. What a 
parody on royal state this — the Empress-Queen get- 
ting up in the cold and damp, to light her own fire! 
Verily, truth is stranger by far than fiction ! 

The Kaiser detested his wife's relatives. He hated 
her mother — the usual " mother-in-law " situation. 
He quarreled with the Kaiserin over her kith and kin 
on frequent occasions. 

One of these wrangles was over using, for family 
purposes, funds from the so-called " Imperial Disposi- 
tion Fund," intended to afford relief to Prussian and 
German veterans of the wars and in case of great na- 
tional disasters. As its name implies, the right of be- 
stowing grants out of the three million marks, annually 
set aside for the purposes specified, is vested in the 
sovereign — reason enough for William who recognized 
no obligation that conflicted with his " all-highest " 
pleasure, to regard the money as a sort of augmenta- 
tion of the civil list, in the same way as he took the 
naval phrases, " his Majesty's cruiser," " his Majesty's 
torpedo," etc., literally. 

To convey a thorough understanding of this matter, 
we shall have to go back to events which I well recall. 



112 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

It was my imperial mistress who, after the withdrawal 
of Count Zedlitz's common-school law, persuaded von 
Caprivi to remain in office. 

" Votre petite guerre est fini," said the Emperor to 
her Majesty at supper, " and you have not been luck- 
ier than Madame Eugenie. Rest assured, though, that 
I will not be in the market again for any of Uncle 
Christian's ultra-Christian plans. No, we will not go 
to Cumberland Lodge a second time." 

Her Majesty grew pale and blushed violently in 
rapid succession. Her bosom heaved, and some of the' 
wine in the glass she was raising to her lips spilled over 
her superb gown. 

" I do not quite understand, Willie," she said at 
last, lisping painfully in her agitation. 

"Beg your Majesty's pardon," was the Kaiser's 
sarcastic reply ; " I thought everybody knew by this 
time that I had to withdraw the Volksschulgesetz and 
turn Zedlitz adrift. My government was fast becom- 
ing the laughing stock of Europe with this Augusten- 
burg sort of legislation, as Bismarck styles it." 

" The old enemy of our house — " whimpered Augusta 
Victoria. 

" You are mistaken in your surmisal : I am not quot- 
ing from the Hamburger Nachrichten. The Prince ex- 
pressed himself thus toward your uncle Waldersee, 
pointing out at the same time the risks I was running 
in advocating a law liable to be associated in public 
opinion with petticoat and family influences." 

I did not hear the whole of this conversation, and 
lost the rest of it altogether, as, by the Empress's re- 
quest, William lowered his voice after this last sally; 
but her Majesty repeated it word for word when we 
ladies attended her in her dressing-room later on. 

" The Kaiser chooses to put all the blame for this 
failure upon myself and my family," she said, amid a 
flood of tears ; " but, by all that is holy to me, I swear, 
neither my uncle, nor I personally, had anything to 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 113 

do with the launching of the Volksschulgesetz. Prince 
Christian, it is true, has endeavored to impress his 
Majesty with the importance of his religious duties 
as summus episcopus, and the two gentlemen have had 
conferences about the best ways and means to combat 
disbelief and atheism in Germany, but I am convinced 
that my uncle never ventured advice on matters of 
legislation. He merely tried to rouse my husband's 
interest in divine matters, as any ardent follower of 
the Lord should do. The Volksschulgesetz as such was 
the Kaiser's own creation, though some of the ideas 
incorporated in it might have come from across the 
channel." 

" Your Majesty should not have minded the Kaiser's 
ill-humor," I ventured to say : " the attitude of Parlia- 
ment and the press naturally angered him and- " 

" I know, I know," interrupted Auguste Victoria ; 
" I can forget everything but the words : * We will 
not go to Cumberland Lodge a second time.' It was 
there, at my uncle's seat, that William and I fell in 
love with each other." 

The Kaiser slept, on the night that followed Count 
Zedlitz's enforced resignation, in his little private bed- 
room, and next morning departed for Hubertusstock 
before her Majesty had arisen. That was enough to 
paint our gilded salons an ashen gray, in which the 
children, her Majesty's ladies, friends, and attend- 
ants, vanished as if behind a cloud. Auguste Victoria 
refused to be comforted: her husband had left her 
in a fit of irritation ; the sovereign lady was seemingly 
incapable of turning her thoughts from the disquiet- 
ing subject. 

Life at Court ran in smooth channels for some weeks 
following the little family jar just described; the cor- 
oneted graphomaniacs who had embroiled the imperial 
couple in the nastiest sort of family dispute stopped 
writing after firing one more broadside of admiration 
and excuses, instead of distrust and calumny as before, 



114* SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

and the political horizon being unusually tranquil, the 
Kaiser and Kaiserin gave themselves up to the pleasures 
of the season, his Majesty hunting and speechifying, 
dining out and enjoying little trips, the Empress knit- 
ting and sewing for the orphan asylums and making 
other preparations for Christmas. 

I recall an incident which shows how the Kaiser ap- 
proached his children and nearly frightened them to 
death. Prince Adalbert, in his tender years, was a 
lieutenant in the marine, and his governor had taught 
him to exhibit interest in naval matters on all possible 
occasions. So, when he heard his father speak of 
" Uncle Henry's " forthcoming trip to " Grandma Vic- 
toria," he said, quickly : " Will you let uncle have the 
Hohenzollern ? " 

The Kaiser, who had been very pleasant at luncheon, 
and whose humor had continued in a happy mood 
while we were sipping our coffee in the Tassen Zimmer, 
suddenly changed his tone. Assuming the style of a 
severe preceptor, he made the frightened boy leave his 
mother's knee and " stand at attention." 

" Under which title does the Hohenzollern rank in the 
marine lists?" he demanded. 

" His Majesty's Aviso, the yacht Hohenzollern, at 
the Kaiser's exclusive disposal," reported the tiny lieu- 
tenant. 

" Well, then," said the Emperor, " understand sir, 
no subject shall assume the Kaiser's privileges." 

His Majesty had spoken so severely and with such 
excessive emphasis that the little Prince became fright- 
ened and had to be conducted from the room while the 
small assemblage of officials and guests sat about 
dispirited, a feeling of unrest having ^replaced the 
previous joviality. 

There were always much bickering and tattle and 
petty disputes in the royal family. I recall William 
D. Howells' preface to the memoirs of Frederick the 
Great's " little sister " Wilhelmina, whom the American 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 115 

author styles " Princess Royal of Prussia being one of 
the strongholds of Salic law." Howells tells us that the 
poor Margravine's father, " though rich and powerful, 
was coarse and mean in most things, and bullied the 
Queen quite like a King in pantomine." Does he really 
suppose that the ignoble practice of browbeating a 
sovereign lady begins and ends with the first Frederick 
William and the king-popinjays of mimicry? 

Sympathizers of the monarchial system, who write 
of royal life under the direct influence of the august 
persons alleged to be portrayed, and litterateurs never 
permitted to invade the palace's sacred precincts, may 
agree with Howells, and it is certainly pleasant to do 
so, but candor compels me to destroy that cheerful 
illusion so far as it may apply to the Imperial Court of 
Berlin. " Willie " and " Dona " have their little un- 
pleasantnesses and homely rows like any ordinary 
couple, and, what ivas quite self-evident in the Father- 
land, the man always got the better of the weaker sex, 
Wilhelm's superior intellect, his impetuosity and un- 
equivocal bluntness of speech, making his ascendency 
a foregone conclusion. 

Besides, the Empress is deadly afraid of her lord, 
and readily capitulates whenever and wherever his 
Majesty signifies disapproval. And here the eternal 
Bameness of royal and common folks is again emphasized 
— most of the quarrels between the imperial couple are 
occasioned by questions of dress, or the difficulties of 
paying for the same, which seemed destined, at one 
time, to become the source of really serious trouble 
in our menage. 

Her Majesty frequently took an hour to prepare for 
the night, only to find " Willie " snoring softly when 
she came to bed. And, oh, the tears the imperial lady 
shed over her hands which, though proportionate to 
her body, cannot be coaxed to come up to the Kaiser's 
standard of beauty. If those tears were collected, as 
was the saltish sympathy of paid weepers at the ancient 



116 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Roman funerals, marry! they would fill quite as many 
bottles as are on her Majesty's dresser. 

I have had occasion to speak of her Majesty's 
jealousy before this. When the Hoflager moved to the 
Marble Palace, where Princess Louise was born, the 
household had to get along without its official head, 
Baroness von Larisch, because myself happens to have 
beautiful hands and arms and, on that account, was 
much admired by his Majesty. 

And a still more petty thing: Augusta Victoria con- 
fiscated a photograph of Queen Emma of the Nether- 
lands which stood on the Emperor's desk. The Queen- 
Dowager was a most estimable lady, but it would be 
folly to call her pretty. Still, she had fine hands and 
everybody and everything liable to interest his Majesty 
had to go. At about this time the Kaiserin ordered the 
seamstresses, who occupied a little room overlooking 
the court-yard, to be dislodged. She trembled lest her 
husband, who was about to return from his Northland 
journey, should see one of the women at the window. 

So great was her Majesty's confidence in Herr von 
der Knesebeck, that, if at all possible, she submitted 
to him every little matter, either verbally or in writing. 
In the course of a year. Empress and chamberlain 
exchanged hundreds of letters, some of the Kaiserin's 
being five and six pages long. 

Bodo Knesebeck saved the Empress from making 
herself ridiculous, and from seriously compromising 
her husband and the government during the Berlin 
riots some years ago. Incidentally the chamberlain 
saved our mistress from her lord's lasting displeasure on 
that occasion, which probably counts more with her than 
anything else. For v^^eeks we had prepared for the 
great carnival ball when the invited gentlemen were to 
appear for the first time in English court-dress, an 
event William looked forward to no less eagerly than 
a girl does to her debut in long frocks. 

For the ball, the late King's favorite, premiere ball- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 117 

erina Marie Koebisch-Wolden, had arranged a gorgeous 
revival of that most graceful dance, menuet a la reine, 
which was to be tripped before the throne when the 
evening's festivities were at their height. My mistress 
meant to surpass all her previous efforts in the matter 
of personal adornment. 

At last the festive day had come. Early in the 
morning the entire stock of crown- jewels, all excepting 
the crown itself, were brought to the royal dressing- 
room, and her Majesty, Countess BrockdorfF, and 
Frau von Haake spent hours making and remaking new 
combinations of the stones and ornaments, most of 
which can be put to various uses, as pins, buttons, 
buckles, brooches, etc. Then, all of a sudden, the cry 
ran through the Schloss' chambers ! " Berlin is in 
revolt ! " 

" There will be no minuet, rather a Carmagnole," 
lamented the anxious ; " instead of beribboned and 
belaced silk coats, the ' blouse ; ' in place of honeyed 
words and pretty toy swords, ' pipe in cheek, loaded 
canes on thigh,' as in the days when they sang ' Vive 
le son du canon.' " 

Baron Mirbach sent me to my mistress to prepare her 
for noisy scenes in the neighborhood of the Schloss. I 
found the Empress in the room facing the great foun- 
tain, running excitedly from one window to the other. 
In the square below, people were assembling in groups, 
talking and gesticulating. 

I delivered the message and, of my own accord, 
added : " His Majesty will not drive out this morning." 

" And if he loves me, he will remain, he must remain 
with us until this awful revolution is quelled." 

" I entreat your Majesty to be calm," I made bold 
to say, as Countess Brockdorff kept silent ; " accord- 
ing to the papers, these people want bread and want 
work; they have no thought of violence. Besides," I 
said, " Herr von Richthofen has sent the entire police 
reserves to the Schloss. There are fifty men at each 



118 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

entrance, and more guarding the cellar-openings and 
the waterside. All the corridors are patrolled, and a 
dozen men are on the lookout on the roof." 

" The roofs," cried the Empress, as if swayed by a 
new fear. " Oh, Grafin " (this to Countess Brock- 
dorff), " they may throw bombs on the roof and destroy 
us all! I must go to the Kaiser at once." 

Second breakfast commenced half an hour earlier than 
usual, and we hurried through its four courses, follow- 
ing their Majesties' example. The Kaiserin's eyes were 
red with crying, and some minutes before dessert the 
children came in, a thing that does not happen more 
than once or twice a year. His Majesty loved his 
little ones in his own way; that is, he liked to keep 
them at a distance. If brought into personal contact 
with the youngsters, his sense of decorum revolted and 
he did not know what to do with them, except to criti- 
cise their dress or military demeanor. 

" I am not going on a journey," he said, and, look- 
ing at the Crown Prince, added : " You and your 
brothers have not come to say good-bye?" The 
Empress bowed her head and whispered something while 
the Kaiser leaned over the table, holding his hand to 
his ear. 

" Dummes Zeug," he said, loud enough for all to 
hear, and pushed back his chair : " I am riding out as 
I do every day in the year ; there is no use 'making a 
scene, ' Dona ' ! " He kissed some of the children, 
fondled the heads of the younger ones, and drawing the 
Empress's arm through his own, walked out, preceded 
by the house-marshal and his adjutants. 

When, a quarter of an hour later, the Empress came 
from -his room, she declared : " Thank God, the Kaiser 
will take his pistols along, one in the right pocket of 
his trousers, and one in his coat pocket." Then her 
Majesty led the way to the state apartments, where we 
took our stand at the windows of the Knights' Hall to 
see William ride from Portal V a few minutes later. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 119 

As he passed, his Majesty looked up, and the 
Empress followed him along the front of the Schloss 
through the Black Eagle chamber, the Red Velvet cham- 
ber, and the old chapel. As we crossed over to the 
windows of the picture-gallery, he waved his hand for 
the last time. 

Strange to say he was without his ordinary escort of 
grooms and gendarmes. Merely Adjutant von Moltke 
and one other military gentleman accompanied him. 

The Kaiserin was beside herself. " He will be killed, 
I know he will be killed, and myself and the children 
will come next. Let us flee from this room, in front of 
which, as the Kaiser says, kingship was put to the 
greatest indignities." 

Her Majesty ran to her own apartment, and through 
the speaking-tube ordered that all her children be 
brought down at once. 

" See there, there ! " cried the Empress, " I told you 
this was a revolution. The crowds are getting thicker 
and thicker; they will overthrow the police and then 
attack the palace. And the Kaiser is away. We must 
go at once. Our only safety lies in flight." 

" Fetch Knesebeck," I whispered to Mademoiselle 
von Gersdorff* ; " he alone can set our mistress right. 
We shall all be disgraced if this mad plan is carried 
out. Be quick, before that toad-eating Keller drives 
the Kaiserin thoroughly crazy." 

Herr von der Knesebeck appeared after a little while, 
suave and smiling as usual. He did not exasperate her 
Majesty by underrating the danger. He pointed out 
to her that the Schloss was the safest place for herself, 
her children, and her jewels. 

" Then you think we are really safe? " 

" Safe? " laughed Herr von der Knesebeck — "Your 
Majesty is pleased to joke. Would the Kaiser leave you 
and the Princes if there was a shadow of danger within 
ten thousand miles? " 

The children clamored loudly for an outing. They 



120 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

had been locked in the house for three days, and con- 
finement was telling on the little ones. But her Majesty 
would not hear of the proposed carriage ride. Only 
after Major von Falkenhayn had patrolled the streets 
in citizen's dress to ascertain the popular animus, and 
reported that the riotous movement had entirely sub- 
sided, were the children sent to the Thiergarten in an 
old carriage, driven by a man in every-day clothes and 
preceded by ditto grooms on horseback, who were to 
keep well ahead and communicate with the police along 
the route. 

In former years when the Kaiserin and her sister, 
Princess Frederick Leopold, were on friendly terms, 
Auguste Victoria used to take sides with her brother-in- 
law against the widowed Princess; but at the time of 
which I write she and Sophie Louise hardly spoke, her 
Majesty giving her dislike to Baron Wangenheim as an 
excuse ^or neglecting her amiable grandaunt. Some 
little time before Frederick Leopold's wedding, the 
Kaiser mentioned to her Majesty that, in a month or 
so. Aunt Marie would be without a roof over her head. 
" She is of opinion that I have to provide her with a 
suitable home," he said. 

"Is it possible.?" The Empress, who always acts 
as if she had never known poverty, raised her eyes in 
astonishment. " Perhaps she aspires to Babelsberg or 
Charlottenburg, or perhaps she wants me to give up 
the Marble Palace for her accommodation." 

" Calm yourself," replied the Emperor ; " I have 
already decided what to do. I told her she could have 
rooms at Bruhl." 

"Bruhl.?" queried the Empress; "where is that.?" 

This ignorance vexed William. " In Southwest 
Africa, near Klein-Popo," he said, brusquely, and left 
her Majesty and her ladies blushing. 

Selfishness is the curse of the domestic relations of 
the Hohenzollerns. Moreover, the Kaiser is a " bully " 
in his family. Trouble starts in the morning at the 



SIECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 121 

stroke of 6.30, 7, or 7.30 o'clock, when their Majesties 
emerge from their room. The Kaiser, in pajamas and 
sporting a jaunty cap, makes at once for his bath, 
while the Empress, clad only in a woolen wrapper and 
heelless slippers, ascends to the nursery, where her 
youngest little ones sleep under care of three or four 
maids. 

If the Kaiser and Kaiserin intended to go for a 
drive after breakfast, the older children were ordered 
down to kiss their mother and read a chapter from 
some devotional book before her. It was a pretty 
custom, that lacks not impressiveness, and even the 
lower domestics, who, working in the corridor, cannot 
help observing the scene in the dressing-room, are 
deeeply moved by it, but stern reality only too often 
interferes with its popular conclusion. 

" Wheez ! " goes the speaking-tube. The Kammer- 
diener of his Majesty announces to the Kammerdiener 
of her Majesty that his master has been pleased to 
enter the breakfast-room, or to step down to the 
Apollo Hall on the first floor, where sometimes the early 
repast is served. 

The effect the message invariably produced would 
be amusing if the poor maids were not the scapegoats. 
Empress, Princess, and domestics all fled and fluttered 
about like so many frightened chicks ; the children were 
instantly dismissed, and her Majesty's sharp repri- 
mands spurred the anxious woman to hasty effort. 

" The Kaiser is waiting ! " It sounds to those who 
know him best almost like news of a serious ailment or 
misfortune threatening the head of the government. 

At any rate, the Empress usually managed to catch 
up with her august lord within five or six minutes at the 
very latest, and the Fatherland is once more safe. 

Even their worst enemy, the Prince of Reuss-Greitz- 
Kranichfeld-Gera Lobenstein, etc., Henry XXII, he of 
the Elder Branch, cannot charge the Emperor and 
Empress of Germany with being gourmets. Though the 



122 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

breakfast consists of four or five courses, including 
meats, eggs, different kinds of breads and cakes, 
stewed fruits and marmalades, refined taste would find 
little of it palatable, grease and the frjing-pan being 
too much in evidence. 

Unless the Emperor was free to take her for a walk 
or drive, the Kaiserin devoted herself to her children 
after breakfast. They promenade in the park together 
or amuse themselves in-doors with readings or games, 
and romance-spinning being one of her Majesty's 
strong points, the boys and the little daughter never 
grow weary listening to the old tales of Grimm and 
Andersen. 

But soon, only too soon for the youngsters, the vari- 
ous governors of the puny Royal Highnesses say it is 
time to begin *with the lessons. Expressions of regret, 
all round prayers for just one more glimpse into fairy- 
land, for permission to take a spin on the bicycle or 
look after the ponies — all chattering at once, kisses, 
embraces, tears even; but a word from the Kaiserin's 
lips settles the whole litter ; " I will tell papa." And 
the stripplings that expected to command battles in a 
dozen years or so, scattered after a hasty good-bye. 

How often have I been importuned to allow visitors 
just one peep into this sanctum sanctorum of the Kaiser 
and his frau — their bedroom. But, of course, no such 
request could be granted, even were it accompanied by 
the offer of the richest diamond in the world. 

But now that the Emperor and his Empress are 
plain Mr. and Mrs. William Hohenzollern it may be 
permissible to describe their more intimate relationship 
when they resided in the palace — in fact called some 
fifty palaces their home. 

Napoleon, the first of modern kings, insisted upon 
keeping imperial Marie Louise under lock and key 
after she had retired ; the only entrance to her room was 
through a chamber in which the first lady-in-waiting 
slept, whose bed, moreover, had to be curtainless, so 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 123 

that the Emperor, when passing, might see whether 
she was alone; but in Potsdam and Berlin the heads of 
a mighty nation slept together as unceremoniously and 
as comfortably, let us hope, as any Herr and Frau 
Burgomaster or citizen of even lesser importance in 
the Fatherland. 

I will take you into their Majesties' bedroom. It- 
opens by a richly ornamental folding door into the 
Kaiserin's study on the sect)nd floor of the Neues 
Palais. It has two high windows, and is lofty and 
spacious, but sadly lacks the harmony in color and 
general furnishings that is the main charm of a really 
beautiful apartment, such as this is intended to be. 

Indeed, the Kaiserin tired of it long ago, and would 
gladly have exchanged its treasures, one and all, for 
new things, though the room was fitted up entirely at 
her own suggestion. What first upset the Empress 
was the ultra graceful and exquisite style of Neu- 
Glienecke, the property of her brother-in-law and sister, 
Prince and Princess Frederick Leopold of Prussia, the 
richest of the Hohenzollerns. 

This castle, situated near Potsdam, was rebuilt soon 
after William's enthronement, and having thoroughly 
redecorated and refitted the palace in the latest and 
most sumptuous manner, their Royal Highnesses gave 
a house-warming. From this her Majesty returned in 
high dudgeon, and, on entering her own bedroom, where 
I was busy arranging some flowers, she exclaimed: 
"How pauvre it all looks! If one judged mine and 
Louise's positions from our surroundings I might be 
taken for a mere appanaged princess, while my sister 
would easily pass for the Kaiserin. She has everything 
of the latest — the German Empress must content her- 
self with the remnants of centuries scattered among 
Berlin-made show-pieces." 

A right royal couch was that in which, during the 
first years of their reign, the Emperor and Empress 
slept — magnificent and stately, a fitting companion- 



124 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

piece, with its canopy and curtains, to that world- 
famed four-poster, the Bed of Ware, which could be 
enclosed on all sides by tapestries, and whereto the 
King and Queen retired in full sight of all their re- 
tainers lying around on the straw-covered floor with 
doublets and petticoats for pillows, and " full of good 
wine each mother's son and daughter of them." 

How the Kaiser liked this old bed, with its heraldic 
designs, and upholstered side-pieces, whereon he could 
sit comfortably, smoking a cigarette and reading a 
novel by the light of the single wax candle standing on 
a little table near his end of the couch! But, lo! 
" those Frederick Leopolds " acquired modern English 
bedsteads, and, womanlike, Augusta Victoria would 
not allow her sister to eclipse her in being up to date. 

So one fine day the lying-in beds were ordered home 
from Charlottenburg castle, their usual storage-place, 
and, the antique couch being sent up-stairs, these things 
of brass and the mode were put up near the windows, 
to the intense alarm of the physicians, who feared they 
had made another miscalculation, and of relatives and 
friends who anticipated a catastrophe like that follow- 
ing the Pasewalk review. Of course, it was a false 
alarm, and our pretty Princess Louise was " regularly 
born " on September 13, 1892. 

That the Emperor, at the bottom of his heart, had 
his doubts as to the propriety of using a common 
factory-made bedstead as the cradle of kings, is evident 
from the fact that for some time these brass affairs had 
to be removed every morning, while in their place the 
Elizabethan couch was set up ; but the order, which 
evoked no end of dissatisfaction among the servants, 
gradually fell into disuse, and in later days the triumph 
of brass over stately splendor was complete. 

As every domestic arrangement in the palace was 
fashioned with a view insuring the preservation of the 
Kaiser's health, the doors and windows near the im- 
perial bed are doubly screened by heavy portieres, 



Secret life of the kaiser 125 

summer and winter; for the faintest possibility of 
draughts was dreaded, and even the down quilts and 
blankets were so fastened at the bottom and sides that 
their Majesties must needs crawl into bed one leg at a 
time, there being only a breadth of about twenty 
inches left open. 

Before the imperial couple retired our household 
went through a series of routine work. Above all, his 
Majesty's nickel warming-pan must be heated to the 
proper degree and placed at his, the right side of the 
bed. That was done all the year round, except in July 
and August. Next, folding screens wer« so placed as 
to surround the bed on all sides, and woe to the chamber- 
woman who forgot to draw any of the numerous cur- 
tains, portieres and other devices for excluding a 
breath of air. For cases of emergency, a pair of long 
woolen stockings, white cloth knickerbockers, jack- 
boots, a flannel-lined pea-jacket, soft hat and gloves 
must be placed ready on one corner of the lounge — that 
is at the foot of the bed, and a similar " accident toi- 
let " was provided for her Majesty. 

I recall an amusing experience which shows that 
queens are very hu'^ian after all. The Kaiser was 
absent at the manoeuvres with the King of Saxony. 
Her Majesty, to kill time, which never hangs more 
heavily upon her hands than when her lord is away from 
home, conceived the idea of painting the basket settees 
in the Kaiser's bedroom a bright lilac. It was to be a 
surprise for William upon his return. 

" Before we go to bed, I will ask the Kaiser to sit 
down in his i^avorite seat for a moment, and then I 
will suddenly turn up the lamps, exhibiting my work. 
Won't he be pleased? " her Majesty had remarked to 
Fraulein von Gersdorff. 

The latter acquiesced, as a matter of course, and 
both ladies started in upon the task at once, spoiling 
many pairs of gloves, besides their dresses and a carpet 



126 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

worth a whole regiment of wicker chairs. But this mat- 
tered little, seeing that, after several cans of mixed 
paint and a bottle of turpentine had been consumed, 
the chef-d' oeuvre was complete. It was the day before 
William was expected back. 

"But will they be dry in time.?" asked the Dame 
of the Court, Grafin Keller, when all the ladies of her 
Majesty had been called together to view this first 
attempt at household decoration. 

" Certainly," said the Kaiserin, with a laugh : 
" Kammerdiener Luck made inquiries for me at the 
paint store, and I followed the directions to the letter." 

Next evening their Majesties retired. The Empress's 
little program seems to have worked to perfection till — 
but let her Majesty tell her own story. 

" No sooner were the lights on," reported Augusta 
Victoria to her first Lady, Countess Brockdorff, the 
following day, " and while I myself was settling down 
in the second chair than I saw the Bmperor start up 
half surprised, half angry, with his hands and other 
portions of his body thickly besmeared with pigment 
that, I felt to my horror, also adhered to my body. 

" ' This is a sorry joke,' he shouted in high temper. 
And neither explanations nor excuses were of the slight- 
est avail. 

" ' Ring for turpentine.' That is all he would say. 

'* I awakened Haake, and told her to order the im- 
perial housekeeper to send up a bottle of the stuff ; but, 
needless to say, she had none on hand. Then the 
Emperor demanded that one of the body gendarmes ride 
into town and fetch a bottle. Like a simpleton, he 
awakened the apothecary only to be told that he must 
go to a drug store. Drug stores, as you know, have no 
night-bells, and are not obliged to serve customers 
after the ordinary closing time. It took the gendarme 
a full hour to get what he wanted, and even then he 
was obliged to invoke aid from a military patrol. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 127 

" The next thirty or forty minutes I spent in cleans- 
ing my lord's legs, arms and hands, and afterward 
poor Haake had to do the same_for me. It was the 
most miserable night I ever experienced." 

These intimate little glimpses give us a true view 
of the real William Hohenzollem. 



CHAPTER Vm 

What we are now to reveal requires explanations- — 
ii not apology. But we are pledged to tell " the truth, 
whole truth and nothing hut the truth " about 
Mam HohenzoUern — the exiled Kaiser of Germany — 
*, this requires us to reveal phases of his character 
^oout which we should prefer to remain silent. This 
silence, however, would be unjust to the world; it would, 
in fact, be a deliberate attempt to conceal important 
facts and thus protect him from his own conduct. 
William HohenzoUern is entitled to no such suppression 
of the truth. He has placed himself before the cold 
scrutiny of history and must stand the consequences — 
every detail of his life belongs to the public — thus we 
are forced to give historical record to the former Em- 
peror^s conduct in the imperial court; his customs and 
habits; his interpretation of public morals; Ms attitude 
toward and his responsiblity to society. The only de- 
fense that we can extend to Mm is that he acted upom 
the axiom: " The King can do no wrong! " — that the 
King is law; that laws are only made for the people; 
and that the King is not subject to either the law of. 
God or man. This undoubtedly is the HohenzoUern^ 
doctrine, and ihe creed of its morals and religion. 

Those observations cover the period of his early life 
and reveal nothing of affairs within the last few years, 
which might incriminate many living personages. Let 
us begin at the beginning. What was the fundamental 
conception of moral obligations with which William 
HohenzoUern began life? And what was the nature of 
this moral development.? 

J2S 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 129 

I was told when I entered the court that as a young 
prince among men of his own caste and age, William 
had but one intimate, the late Rudolph of Austria ; but 
the pleasant relations between these young men, based 
upon mutual likes and dislikes, came to an abrupt end 
some four years previous to the Archduke's awful 
death, discord arising when Prince and Princess William 
were spending several weeks at their Imperial High- 
nesses' country-place near Vienna. From this outing 
the Princess returned all of a sudden and post-haste to 
Potsdam, while her husband went on an impromptu 
tour of military infection in the provinces. 

And the reason? 

Princess Philip of Coburg, sister of the Archduchess 
Stephanie, told me that William, returning in her 
brother-in-law's company from a stag party late one 
evening, proposed a game, which, her Royal Highness 
insists, is " quite common " among Crerman officers. 
._^ . (Deleted by the editors.) 

Next morning the young wives got together: but as 
each charged the other's husband with instigating the 
devilish plot, the happy family party was bound to 
break up, and the worthy of each other separated with- 
out saying good-by. Such, at least, was common re- 
port at the court of Empress Augusta in Coblenz, 
where I happened to be at the time. 

As for the rest, it will probably never be known which 
of the royal gentlemen incited the act ; maybe both were 
drunk and agreed upon the dictum of Prusssian army 
men: " Among pals it's all the same," as a good joke. 

(This testimony of the next episode is related here 
also with apologies; it becomes essential, however, to 
give history its correct judgment.) 

My next experience in the Emperor's court was when 
the household was upset by the receipt of an anonymous 
letter, written to the Empress. I will tell more about 
these anonymous letter scandals later — ^but here let me 
mention this one : 



130 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

" Madame," wrote the anonymous correspondent, 
** do jou know what is the difference between you and 
Maria Leczinska? Her children died while Louis the 
Fifteenth's illegitimate oflFspring flourished. To-day 
the Kaiser's Vienna baby is dead. I wonder if for the 
same reason which the physician of his Most Christian 
Majesty assigned for the demise of the Queen's 
children? " 

That cruel letter, cruel, yet consoling in more than 
one way, arrived when the anonymous letter scandal was 
at its height and the little waif was about twelve months 
old. 

Her mother was a beauteous Viennese, Fraulein Caro- 
line Seiffert, one of the late Crown Prince Rudolph's set. 

Madame von Kotze insisted that it was a spite-baby. 
(I will tell you more about Madame von Kotze later.) 

" And what on earth is a spite-baby? " I inquired. 

" They had been making fun of Caroline — his 
Majesty, then Prince William, and the Prince Imperial 
— ' as a little idiot, who didn't know enough to have a 
child ; ' but like the first Napoleon's love, Marguerite 
Bellisle (the girl General Bonaparte had with him in 
Egypt, or rather took away from one of his officers 
there), the Vienna beauty said: * I will show them who 
the idiot is.' " 

Her child was born, two or three weeks after Eitel 
Fritz, the Kaiser's second son, saw the light at the 
Marble Palace. 

I remembered the circumstances perfectly, and my 
question to Madame von Kotze was merely asked to 
help clear up, if possible, the authorship of the un- 
signed communications that had kept their Majesties 
and the court in a turmoil for two years. I was one 
of many in the royal service and society generally who 
did not believe the Kotzes guilty, and have never had 
occasion to change this opinion. Jealousy was alleged 
to be the mainspring of the scandal, — Madame von 
Kotze's jealousy of Countess, Fritz Hohenau's ascen- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 131 

dency over the Kaiser, I put the question to disabuse 
my mind of any suspicions of that sort. 

To return to William's infatuation for Mademoiselle 
Seiffert. That story was well known to the intimates 
of the late Crown Prince's circle. (Afterward Emperor 
Frederick. ) 

" Unser Fritz " did not mind it much. Having been 
kept well in hand by his " Vicky " all through life, I 
suspect he even took some mischievous delight in his 
son's escapade, as his visit to the court of the late 
Alphonso XII, so rich in adventure, proved. 

But in the Princess Imperial's eyes a liasion was little 
short of a crime. Pictures of the fourth George and 
Mrs. Fitz-Herbert, she told me once, arose before her 
mental eyes every time she thought of the matter. At 
that period, be it remembered, the history of Prince and 
Princess William's marriage was as fresh in everybody's 
memory as it is now obscure, — as fresh as were the inci- 
dents attending George's courtship with Caroline of 
Brunswick during the first ten years after Europe's 
gentleman par excellence had reeled into the Chapel 
Royal and hiccoughed out his vows of fidelity. 

Augusta Victoria was a much-abused woman then, 
though carrying out her part of the marriage agreement 
— to provide new Hohenzollerns — with the utmost loy- 
alty. Indeed, so frequent were the stork's visits in the 
household that the wife was unable to appear at the 
great court festivals for three winters in succession, 
while her husband, full of resentment for his consort-by- 
statecraft, shamefully ignored her. And to crown it 
all — this Vienna scandal! 

Primarily it was the outcome of the friendship be- 
tween the two heirs destined to wear the most ancient 
and the newest imperial diadems (Germany and Austria 
— allied for the Great War which was to upset the 
world). Being of the same age, and possessed of 
temperaments whose selfishness was only equalled by 
thirst for power, both commanded, if not much ready 



132 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

money, unlimited credit for certain extravagances. 
Rudolphj however, was far ahead of William in the 
knowledge of fashionable vice. 

In the Potsdam archives I came upon a stack of 
letters from the representatives of Prussia at the Vienna 
Congress, denouncing a state of morals that permitted 
the sons of the great Austrian nobles to keep mistresses 
at the age of thirteen or fourteen years. Similar ob- 
servations might be made of the Vienna of the nineties 
— and Rudolph was more than a noble ! 

The two young princes, then twenty-four and twenty- 
five years old, considered it fun to revel in debauches 
with the official world and society looking on, and the 
possibility of bothersome consequences was invited 
rather than dreaded by these hopeful roues. 

Yet, when Mademoiselle Seiffert's telegram arrived in 
Berlin, Prince William did not feel in the devil-may-care 
mood that had led him into the adventure, and his first 
serious misunderstanding with his sister Charlotte arose 
on account of a clever bit of poetry cited by her Royal 
Highness " in honor of the occasion," as she expressed 
herself, 

" Vater werden ist nicht schwer, 
Aber's sein um desto mehr." 

Translated : To become a father is easy enough, but to 
be one is different. 

Caroline was not sentimental about the affair. Un- 
like Marie Vecsera, she had never dreamed of a diadem, 
or even a coronet to gloss over her fall. Only by a 
short telegram sought she to reopen communication 
with the father; her next step was to formulate her 
demands at the German Embassy in her native city. 

There were frantic messages from Prince Reuss, hus- 
band of the catty and imperious Marie : " I am neither 
a Beauharnais nor a Talleyrand," he wrote, " What 
have I to do with this affair.'^ " 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 183 

However, Prince Bismarck, who was friendly to both 
Reuss and William, at last persuaded the Ambassador 
to look into the case. 

" A hundred thousand florins," said Mademoiselle 
Seiffert, according to diplomatic correspondence relat- 
ing to the case. 

(This evidence at least gives an historical insight into 
the moral codes of the Imperial Governments of Ger- 
many and Austria.) 

Every time his Majesty visited the Austrian capital 
he received hundreds of letters from countesses and 
princesses who fairly threw themselves at his feet, for, 
under the shadow of the Hofburg, husbands are of the 
amiable type that never interfere so long as they, the 
lords of creation, are allowed to please themselves. 

" Your Majesty has the most beautiful eyes ; " " The 
holy fire of idealism burns in your eyes: let them rest 
upon your Majesty's humblest subject;" "Your eyes 
are those of a King: allow my poor self to bask in 
their sunshine but for ever so short a while," are 
extracts from epistles the Kaiser brought home from 
time to time and read to her Majesty. 

It was because of these incidents, and the natural 
jealousy of the Kaiserin, that the Berlin court became 
as notorious for the ugliness of its female members as 
that of the old Emperor and Empress was for beauties. 

The Empress, my august mistress (as I have de- 
scribed) is jealousy personified, and not only sur- 
rounded herself with a chain of passe and sour 
dames, but treated women of the aristocracy who 
possess attractions that might possibly captivate the 
Kaiser, with such exquisite and cunning ill-grace that 
they were obliged to keep away from court as often as 
etiquette permitted. 

With the exception of Countess Bassewitz, who was 
young and pretty of face, all her Majesty's ladies be- 
longed to the old guard, and if, perchance, a good- 
looking girl was engaged for the higher duties of the 



134* SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

household where the Emperor was liable to meet her, 
Augusta Victoria soon found ways and means to rid 
the palace of that ray of sunshine. Either the young 
person was driven to hand in her resignation by those 
arts which jealous women understand so well, or was 
transferred to some distant residence which the imperial 
master never visited. 

Fair chambermaids even were subject to this rule, and 
I could give quite a long list of lowly members of our 
menage who were banished from Berlin merely because 
her Majesty thought their noses too finely modelled, or 
their hair too luxurious. 

All the unhappy traits Thackeray ascribes to Queen 
Charlotte were brought in to play when Augusta Vic- 
toria's jealousy was aroused. She became invincible in 
matters of etiquette and angry with her people who, in 
the service, suffered ill-health. A pin out of place, or 
a moment's absence from duty, threw her into a tower- 
ing passion on such occasions. She was unkind, unjust 
and not above excusing her hatred of poor sinners, such 
as we all are, by religious scruples. At all times the 
Kaiserin was a much more gracious mistress to homely 
dependents of her own sex than to good-looking ones; 
and when they were old, into the bargain, she could be 
really delightful ta them. 

" Why this is not the court my father and uncles have 
been telling me about," said the Emperor of Russia, 
then Czarovitch, to the Duke of Schleswig, when he 
visited Berlin a year before Cz^r Alexander's death. 

(This is the late Nicholas, who lost his life in the 
Great War — murdered by his own people — the Bolshe- 
viki that the Kaiser employed in a conspiracy to break 
down the power of Russia.) 

" At home," continued Nicholas, " they talked quite 
enthusiastically of beauties that basked in the shadow 
of the Prussian throne, and whom the old Queen and 
Princesses were generous enough to countenance." 

" Yes, yes," laughed his Highness, the tall Gunther, 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 135 

" that is one of * Dona's ' weak points. She will not 
suifer a handsome face within ten miles of her house. 
It has always been a wonder to me why she keeps 
Bassewitz." 

" Perhaps to prove the rule," suggested Nicholas, 
and the Kaiserin's big brother, who is not endowed with 
a surplus of sense, thought the remark brilliant enough 
to circulate "it among all his intimates. 

" Have you ever seen a richer appareled and home- 
lier lot of women than the entourage of her Majesty of 
Germany.'' " asked a celebrated Moscow surgeon at a 
dinner given to visiting foreign physicians. None of 
them had. 

- At last a little man with coal-black eyes and a 
scraggy, shoe-string moustache spoke up. " Yes," he 
said, in choice pigeon English — " at the drawing-room 
of the Queen of Corea. They were dirtier, too." The 
speaker was a Japanese. 

When this story came to Kaiser William's ears, he 
hawked it about for many days at second breakfast, 
dinner and supper, in the adjutant's room, in the parlor 
and audience-chamber, pronouncing it the cleverest 
thing out — under his breath, of course, for it was to 
be kept from the Empress. 

This is a sample of the treatment the Kaiser meted 
out to his wife's ladies. He seemed to take a fiendish 
delight in teasing the " old guard," and only occasion- 
ally had a good word to say to Countess Bassewitz. 
Fraulein von Gersdorff, who grew stouter as she grew 
older, often served as a target for the Emperor's wit. 
So he insisted, at the decoration of the Christmas trees, 
that the Gersdorff mount a step-ladder and fasten a 
papier-mache angel on top of the tree. Naturally, my 
fat friend offered many excuses with her profoundest 
courtesies, but the Kaiser cut her short with a brusque, 
" I know you are bow-legged ; valet climb up." 

(We present these episodes only to show the true 
pature of German " kultyr " — they are the strongest 



136 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

exposure of coarseness in disguise of culture. There 
was no refinement in the German court clique.) 

On another occasion (it was before the advent of 
Countess Bassewitz) the Kaiserin said one evening when 
the court was assembled in the Tassen Zimmer to kill 
the hours that intervened between after supper and bed- 
time with the usual dreary conversation : " I wonder 
why none of my ladies marry. Perhaps they do not go 
out enough. What do you think, Willie? " 

" Pshaw 1 " answered the Emperor gruffly, " I think 
these ladies have all the freedom they want. Why can- 
not they get husbands? Ask the next looking-glass." 

When I first entered the German court I found 
Madame von Kotze was the favorite. William first took 
her up in the beginning of the eighties, when his mar- 
riage to Augusta Victoria " made him hungry for the 
society of a clever and audacious woman," as Count 
Herbert Bismarck once expressed himself. 

" He has engaged a Marechale de Prusse for his 
awkward better-half," continued his Excellency with a 
sneering allusion to the bargain enacted between Du 
Barri and Madame La Marechale de Mirepoix (who 
for a consideration of a hundred thousand francs per 
annum, taught the gorgeous woman the ways of polite 
society), " and the Countess does it all for the love of 
Christ, or pqur le roi de Prusse, which is the same thing. 
Likewise he wants somebody to make him forget the 
ennui that reigns in his palace." 

It was to Madame von Kotze that Augusta Victoria 
often referred when she charged his Majesty with a 
weakness for brunettes. They fought the " Hungarian 
pork-raiser's daughter," as someone had dubbed her, 
in the salon, the menage, on the slippery parquet of the 
royal ballroom, whenever she showed her saucy, piquant 
face. Ah, that face ! It was not broad and placid ; her 
fine, white shoulders were not quite fleshy enough to 
suit the Teuton female critic. And she had black, curly 
hair, the Kaiser's favorite that was ! That is almost a 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 137 

crime; for are not her Majesty and her friends blondes, 
and was he himself not rather carroty and therefore 
naturally inclined to brunettes. 

However, the royal lady's contemptuous treatment 
of the object of her jealousy, the scenes the Kaiserin 
made for William, and the pin-thrusts of coroneted envy 
were alike powerless to bring about a change in the 
friendship between Madame von Kotze and the sover- 
eign, though the battle raged for ten years or longer. 

His Majesty made it plain that he liked Madame von 
Kotze, and she was, consequently, a conspicuous figure 
at all entertainments, stately or of a semi-private 
nature. Being the wife of one of the high court func- 
tionaries, the " pork-raiser's daughter " sat at the same 
table with crowned heads and the proud possessors of 
sixteen or thirty-two quarterings of nobility. 

More than once the Emperor himself took her in to 
dinner, and at informal suppers, after musicales or 
similar excuses for organized ennui, his Majesty never 
failed to " command " her Excellency to his table. On 
such occasions the Emperor and Empress invited their 
company by sending a page to the favored ones, her 
Majesty selecting the men, and the Kaiser the ladies 
most to their liking. 

At the court balls her Ladyship was likewise much in 
evidence. Being rich in her own right, and having 
increased her fortune enormously by marriage, Madame 
ranked as one of the smartest dressers. She was a 
good talker, quick at repartee and full of Gallic wit. 

" Your Royal Highness's inspecteuse des jambes 
reports for duty." With these words, Madame von 
Kotze greeted William at the beginning of the second 
carnival ball as he stood conversing with some dowagers 
on the steps of the throne in the White Hall. 

I should not believe it possible had I not heard the 
words myself; still I confess the jolly mockery of the 
woman's voice, the innocent look on her face took away 
much of the coarseness of the expression* 



138 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

William had seemingly not been in the happiest of 
moods until then. At the approach of Madame von 
Kotze, his face lit up, and, taking the pretty woman's 
arm, he bowed with a little sneer before the elder ladies 
as he withdrew with his fair escort. 

And so they strolled along, he in his gold-braided 
hussar uniform, the fur-edged attila over his shoulder 
to hide his poor left hand ; the woman, who set herself 
the task of amusing the King, walking briskly by his 
side, laughing and gesticulating. 

" An oriental face," said the Prince von Salm- 
Horstmar, and a dozen people seconded his Grace's 
remarks. It was all over the brilliant hall, with its 
crystal chandeliers and purple and gold hangings, lit 
up by thousands of wax candles. " An oriental face — 
but so was that of Cleopatra." The simile was far- 
fetched. Where was the Caesar, and where was Antony, 
not to mention Caesar Junior.'^ 

During the war this same Salm-Horstmar dis- 
tinguished himself by advocating the utter ruin of Bel- 
gium and France. Likewise the ruin of England by 
invasion. 

The couple walked through all the rooms quite alone, 
for his Royal Highness had hinted to his adjutants 
that they were de trop. At supper, in the Koniginnen 
Zimmer, I was seated at the table reserved for the 
Princess Imperial, who, however, had decided to go 
home at the last moment. Near by was Prince 
William's table, at which Madame von Kotze presided, 
and where all the princes and " bloods " present en- 
joyed the heir presumptive's hospitality. 

How they laughed and joked: "Why don't you 
dance?" asked one of the cavaliers. 

" Because it gives me palpitations." 

And then somebody told the anecdote of Marie An- 
toinette, who, one evening, when waltzing at Petit Tri- 
anon with Count Dillon, the beautiful Dillon, as he was 
called, stood still and said : " You should feel my heart." 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 139 

" Pst ! not so loud," said Frau von Kotze, with a 
side glance to another part of the room, where Baroness 
von Reischach, nee Princess Ratibor, was supping with 
the Countess of Hidveg, both stars of many tableaux 
vivants. 

" But your report, Madame inspecteuse," began 
Prince of Ratibor, now dead, the same who turned 
housebreaker for the love of an Emperor's daughter, 
" we insist upon a report, and a minute one." 

" Well," replied Madame von Kotze, with comic 
grandezza, " we were not overpleased with the new 
fashion, were we, your Royal Highness ? " 

William nodded. " Your Ladyship will proceed," he 
said ; " do not keep these studious young men waiting." 

(It is deemed advisable to expurgate the rest of this 

royal conversation.) 

***** 

You may be sure Augusta Victoria learned all about 
this talk, and perhaps a little more than was actually 
spoken, but to no other purpose than to instil impotent 
rage in the unhappy mother, and make her even more 
suspicious of and disagreeable to good-looking women 
in and out of the palace. 

One of the chief agitators against Madame von 
Kotze, and every other handsome face, for that matter, 
was the grandmistress Countess Brockdorff, who once 
betrayed her practices to the amusement of the whole 
court. Shortly after we had moved from Potsdam to 
Berlin Schloss, an informal note addressed by the 
Countess to her Majesty fell into the hands of one 
of the housemaids. It happened in this way: her 
Majesty, as I have explained, was in the habit of writ- 
ing orders and complaints, intended for the officials, on 
slnall bits of paper which she tore from a book. Now, 
her Excellency's note happened to be written on a simi- 
lar sheet, and so it got mixed with the rest. 

The note contained the names of persons who had 
handed in requests for audience. Last on the list was 



140 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

the name of Madame von Kotze, and opposite it the 
remark, three times underlined : " Refused." Then 
followed this sentence : " All's well that ends well." 
(Signed) Theresa Brockdorff. 

Of course, this note, indicating exactly how the wind 
was blowing in the upper regions, had no sooner been 
read in the marshal's office than its contents were on 
everybody's lips. Most of the courtiers were honest 
enought to see the point of the attack (for, after all, 
t^ mixing up of papers was not wholly accidental) ; 
but the Schrader faction, that is, the friends of Master 
of Ceremony von Schrader, the same who was afterward 
shot and killed by von Kotze, would not have it so. 
They insisted that there was some mysterious connec- 
tion between the refusal of an audience and the anony- 
mous letters. 

It took the camarilla ten years to dislodge Madame 
von Kotze, a long space of time even for Germany, but 
it must be remembered that her Ladyship was not the 
only favorite. There were more thorns, so that the 
efforts of Augusta Victoria's champions were neces- 
sarily divided. 

Charlotte, Countess von Hohenau, was second on the 
list of charmers who boasted of William's friendship 
without fear of compromising her position. 

(This next escapade is but another witness to the 
chimera of German upper-class " kultur " — and the 
type of unrefined social aspirants, who gathered about 
the Kaiser — from his own choice.) 

The young noblewoman, the daughter of a rich land- 
owner, Herr von der Decken, became the Kaiser's 
cousin-german by her marriage to the son of his great 
uncle, Prince Albert of Prussia. Prince Albert's first 
wife was Marianne of the Netherlands, who brought 
him an enormous fortune, and whom he divorced be- 
cause of her riding master. This latter was a brute, 
and Marianne never had a quiet moment during his 
life. After the divorce the unequal pair resided at her 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 141 

Highness's Castle, Kamentz, in Silesia, and the ex-host- 
ler used to whip his royal mistress mercilessly, while 
she fed him on the fat of the land. When at. last he 
succumbed, poor Marianne took another lease of life. 

Four years after his divorce, Prince Albert married 
Rosalie de Ranch, by whom he had two sons, William 
and Fritz, who were created Counts von Hohenau, and 
entered Berlin high life. 

The elder, William, a major in the Garde du Corps, 
married a daughter of the Duke d'Ujest, whereby he 
improved upon his relationship to the Kaiser by becom- 
ing cousin-german to her Majesty, too. However, by 
the grace of his wife's beauty, Fritz was the best known 
of the brothers, and his fortune, augmented by the von 
der Decken millions, was the amplest. 

The Hohenaus, all of them, men and women, were 
much befriended by the old Emperor, and Count 
William came near inveigling Frederick III to revive in 
his favor the name and title borne by the morganatic 
wife of Frederick William III, the Countess Harrach. 
He would be Prince of Liegnitz today, had the late 
Emperor been able to sign the piece of parchment set- 
ting forth the creation during the last days of his 
illness. 

The present Kaiser never cared much for the " left- 
handed brood," as he called his cousins, with the pride 
of the " regularly born," but when he returned from a 
hunting-trip to the Principality of Pless, all this was 
changed. 

He had seen his " loveliest and most piquant of 
cousins," and was now convinced that Frederick the 
Great's motto was true, viz : that a " dash of plebeian 
blood here and there improves a royal race." 

"Of whom are you talking,. pray," asked the Em- 
press, across the table, moving uncomfortably in her 
seat. " I did not know any of our set were invited." 

" I had the pleasure of referring to Fritz Hohenau's 
wife." 



142 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

" Ob, that woman. She is a gamekeeper's daughter, 
or something of that sort, is she not? " 

The Emperor paid no attention to this sally. " Eu- 
lenburg," he addressed the grand-master, " I will go 
over the list of the season's guests with you presently." 
And from that day on Countess Fritz had to be treated 
as persona gratissima by everybody in the royal service 
for two years to come. 

The vivacious woman introduced her pleasing pres- 
ence on every occasion when the Emperor personally 
or the court played a part. She rode, hunted and 
skated with us ; she played tennis, and went coaching 
with his Majesty; she danced more gracefully than a 
" good " woman should at our court balls and at those 
stupid dansants. More often than not, her Majesty 
returned from the riding school, where she had gone for 
exercise, with red eyes. " That woman was there — on 
a horse ten times more graceful than my own." 

At state dinners the newly-found cousin's place was 
near enough to the royal arm chair to throw old gold- 
sticks into convulsions, and on lesser occasions William 
often conducted her Ladyship to table, while his Queen 
yawned herself to death at the side of some crusty 
General or dotish relative. 

And how Charlotte's laughter rang out above the 
clatter of silver plate and the tinkling of bumpers! 
Wit, joy, enthusiasm, success, all crystallized in the tone 
of that voice, which the Emperor admired so much, and 
which her Majesty likened to a chansonnette singer's. 

There were sycophants, with and without petticoats, 
who endorsed this later notion — a Queen can find people 
to believe with her in the quadrature of the circle — but 
society generally continued its good opinion of Countess 
Hohenau in the face of calumnies of all sorts. Indeed, 
the clever woman was a favorite everywhere and that, 
with her youth and beauty she didn't capture the 
Kaiser's eye before, is remarkable. Maybe he avoided 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 143 

her on account of the Hohenau-Emperor-Frederick 
entente cordiale. 

One of the blue-blooded participants of the battle in 
Pless tells how the Kaiser first became interested in 
Cousin Charlotte. 

" We were awaiting him in the court yard, the horses 
being drawn up in a semi-circle. My immediate neigh- 
bor on one side, was the only lady in the company, 
Countess Fritz. She rode a long-legged hunter of a 
peculiar red color, straddling the animal. Her cos- 
tume was appropriate to this manoeuver : short Russian 
trousers, reaching to the knee, a close fitting cut-away 
velvet coat over a red vest and shirt, the latter partly 
hidden by a green tie, a jaunty Calabreser hat, and 
high patent-leather boots reaching a little over the 
knees in front, but cut out in the back. 

" As the Kaiser appeared in the door and stood still 
a moment to acknowledge our greetings, his eye caught 
the parcel of loveliness at my side. Scarcely was he in 
the saddle when he cried out : * Cousin Charlotte, a 
word with you.' 

" I will bet my best pointer the Countess had ex- 
pected the invitation," continued my informant, " but 
women will be actresses, you know. She played the sur- 
prised, the bewildered. Perfect horsewoman that she 
is and capable of subduing the most stubborn beast, the 
fox-mare got away with her — apparently. She reared, 
pawed the air, and seemed altogether unmanageable. 
Never saw anything better done at Renz's. (Renz was 
then the foremost circus of Germany.) 

" Suddenly a blow from Madame's gold-headed whip 
between the horse's ears, and with one leap the amazon 
was at his Majesty's side. * Well done, cousin,' we 
heard his Majesty say. They galloped ahead, the rest 
of us following at a respectful distance, dog-trot pace." 

Of course Madame von Kotze was far from pleased 
at the advent of this new star. Rivalries were inevita- 



lU SiECRET LII^E OP THfi KAISER 

ble between the royal favorites, though his Majesty did 
nothing to provoke them, as far as I could observe. 
Possibly he treated the Countess with a little more free- 
dom under his wife's eyes, utilizing the formerly dis- 
puted relationship as a pretence, but in all other re- 
spects Madame von Kotze's position was unshaken. 
She continued her visits at court whenever the Kaiser 
w^s at home, and her beauty and style caused her 
Majesty's ladies most exquisite heart-burnings. 

Indeed, her Ladyship angered the dames more than 
ever because of the increasing luxury of her toilets, for, 
woman-like, she meant to surpass Countess Fritz by new 
creations of the milliner and tailor as well as by mental 
and physical gifts. In this endeavor to out-Eugenie 
Eugenie the tongue of the balance inclined now to one 
side, now to the other. 

I remember Countess Fritz cutting out her Excellency 
at the Schleppen Cour (drawing room) by a superb 
gown of white gold brocade, edged with blue fox; but 
things were evened up when Master of Ceremony von 
Krotze conducted Prince Albert's daughter to a fauteuil 
in the rear of the orchestra at the gala opera, per- 
formed a few weeks later, where she had to sit among 
army officers' wives and ordinary privy councilors. 

My seat was opposite the royal box on that occa- 
sion, and if I live a hundred years I shall not forget 
the smile of satisfaction that overspread Augusta Vic- 
toria's countenance as she perceived her cousin in semi- 
obscurity. The Kaiser himself had only a malicious 
grin for his uncomfortable favorite. 

However, next day we experienced one of those inter- 
mittent upheavals for which the reign of William II 
was notorious. This erratic monarch could not get 
along without rows ; in his ministries, in parliament, or 
at home somewhere there were always axes to grind. 

William had enjoyed his cousin's discomfort in the 
theater ; he had thought it funny " to set the two 
women by the ears " (the satisfaction with which her 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 145 

Majesty viewed the spectacle was likewise not to be 
underestimated) ; but after Countess Fritz, in a private 
audience, sought twelve hours later, had unbosomed her- 
self to his Majesty, all this was changed. 

The master of ceremony was ordered to explain the 
reason for the unheard of breach of etiquette ; and his 
excuse, that her Ladyship had arrived too late to be 
ranged according to her rank, was assiduously pub- 
lished in the palace, in the salons and clubs. 

Then it was given out that his Majesty intended to 
rehabilitate Countess Fritz, and a banquet was forth- 
with held where her Ladyship acquiesced to the new 
order of things quite gracefully, it is said, but insisted 
upon being given a place where she could watch his 
Majesty and the Countess, and listen to the general 
run of their conversation. That this arrangement, 
which all thought natural enough at the time, was after- 
ward turned into an argument for Herr von Kotze's 
incrimination, will be narrated later. 

While these rivals for royal favors were disporting 
their anger and jealousies under her Majesty's nose, 
so to speak, William basked in the smiles of a very 
elegant lady quite unknown to the court, which affects 
to know everything. She was Madame, the Countess 
de Panafiel, wife of the Portuguese Secretary of Lega- 
tion in Berlin, a grandee of his own country, who did 
not amount to much in Kaiserin Augusta Strasse. 

We of the royal service were favored with glimpses 
of Madame de Panafiel's great beauty only at rare 
intervals, when state occasions or other festivities neces- 
sitated her attendance at court. Oftener she was seen 
at the opera, langorously reclining in her gilded arm 
chair over which she had thrown her mantle of ermine 
— a queenly woman, queenly of the style exemplified by 
the Empress of Russia and Queen Marguerite, for, with 
these two exceptions, all the women on the thrones of 
Europe were either homely, coarse, passe, or too old to 
be considered. 



146 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Madame de Panafiel was not so tall as the Empress, 
but possessed in the highest degree the charm of figure 
which constituted Augusta's only claim to beauty in the 
past — a neck and shoulders that seemed modelled by 
an artist's hand to support the burden of crown jewels. 
Add to this splendid endowment lustrous black eyes and 
arched brows, a fine Greek face, a noble carriage, arms 
like those the Venus of Milo lost and the most aristo- 
cratic hands, and you have a faint counterfeit of this 
grand dame, who besides, was famous for her red blonde 
hair. 

The relations between Madame de Panafiel and the 
Kaiser ^lasted four years until her husband was sud- 
denly recalled to Lisbon. There was no one more sur- 
prised at this than the Emperor, who had already lost 
Madame von Kotze, and even before that had been 
obliged to sever the ties which bound him to Countess 
Fritz. We were at the Neties Palais when the news 
reached my mistress. 

" I wonder what the Kaiser will say to this ? Send 
out to ask whether he is in the Vortragszimmer," she 
remarked unconcernedly, though the red blood mounted 
to her cheeks. 

Unhappy Majesty, thou wert cheated out of a jealous 
woman's pleasure to rejoice in a hated rival's downfall, 
to feast thine eyes on a straying husband's disappoint- 
ment, when he finds himself outgeneraled. 

On receiving a telephone message of Panafiel's recall, 
the Emperor had hastened to Berlin to inquire into the 
meaning of the act. The Portuguese Ambassador could 
give him no satisfaction. Beyond the simple notifica- 
tion by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, he had received 
no information from his capital. 

However, before nightfall a report that her Majesty 
was at the bottom of the affair spread in the palace. 

Augusta Victoria, it was said, had stated her griev- 
ance to the Queen of Italy, and the latter, a truly sym- 
pathetic woman, had promised relief; a letter to that 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 147 

effect from her Italian Majesty, had been seen by some 
one in the Kaiserin's confidence. Through the late King 
Umberto, the Empress's wish had finally been communi- 
cated to Queen Maria Pia, who caused her son to name 
Count PanafiePs successor. 

Madame von Leipziger, the wife of the former court 
cotillion leader, retained the royal favor a little longer 
than the ladies named ; but she was homely — a Madame 
de Stael, on a small, very tiny scale, rather than a 
Ninon de I'Enclos. Short, with irregular features and 
bad complexion, this woman gained her ascendency over 
William by means similar to those employed by Talley- 
rand to secure a reputation as a wit and inventor of 
bonmots. 

As the ex-bishop of Autun was never long without his 
" breviary," the " Improvisateur fran^ais," a many- 
volumed collection of anecdotes and smart sayings, so 
was Madame von Leipziger, while at court, forever 
brooding over old and new volumes of magazines, de- 
voted to charades, puzzles and riddles. She made his 
Majesty's acquaintance at an early age, when he was a 
student at Bonn, her birthplace, and knew and appre- 
ciated his passion for those gentle gymnastics that are 
liable to give conversation a sheen of esprit. 

The Kaiser, you know, wants to do uncommon things 
all the time, and where his lion's skin fails to reach, 
he is content to piece it out with the fox's; in other 
words, when he finds it impossible to startle his friends 
and acquaintances by grand schemes, by criticisms of 
this, that or the other thing, by compositions in verse, 
or prose, or of musical character, he likes to give proofs 
of his ever-ready alertness by proposing riddles or 
charades, which the person who happens fo be on the 
rack must assume to be unable to solve, otherwise the 
imperial oracle would have to forego the very pleasure 
for which the comedy was arranged — namely, to give 
the Emperor an opportunity to boast of his superior 
acumen. 



148 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

It seemed to be Madame von Leipziger's real object 
in life to foster this weakness. Ever since the kingly 
dignity has sprung into existence, there have been royal 
favorites, utilizing their sway in various manners. 
Some inspired their lords with good or evil ambitions, 
made them better or worse men, encouraged or dis- 
couraged their inclination for mercy or cruelty, for art, 
the sciences or literature. Frau von Leipziger was 
probably the first to abet a master's disposition to drive 
his subjects to despair by more or less senseless riddles. 

It cannot be my purpose to weary the reader by pic- 
turing the gloom the puzzle-headed hydra at times cast 
over the court. The reptile of mythology, we learned 
at school, had nine heads, each of which, when cut off, 
shot up into two new ones. In similar style her Lady- 
ship and the Emperor used to launch forth new attacks 
upon our good nature as soon as we had disposed of 
one ambiguous proposition. 

But even though Madame von Leipziger's relations 
to her hubsand were of the most innocent character, 
her Majesty disapproved of them. So the news gazetted 
one fine day, that Herr von Leipziger had resigned 
from the army, surprised no one, and Princess Adolph 
of Lippe voiced general opinion at court when she said : 
" My sister-in law would not have any woman under 
fifty amuse the Kaiser." 

Thereafter the charade-fiend went to live in the 
country, and we have never been able to discover 
whether the Emperor's assertion that Madame von 
Leipziger is " one of the most intellectual women of the 
time " is true or not, for the court knew her only in her 
detestable specialty. 

Her Majesty's girdle was already hung with many 
scalps of beauties. The times change, and men change 
with the times. The Kaiser, who once freely resorted 
to tricks to keep his wife from interfering with his pri- 
vate plans, now abandoned, one after another, the 
women whose company he had enjoyed, 



CHAPTER IX 

" Courtly manners," they say — Well, look at these : 

The riding-school of the Berlin royal stables was gay 
with the women of our court and society. His Majesty 
proposed to make the Hubertus hunt the event of the 
season, hence the preparations. Some of us had to 
become used to fresh horses, others had to learn anew 
the intricacies of the various bugle calls. 

Quite unexpectedly the Hereditary Princess of 
Meiningen (the Kaiser's sister) walked in with her 
lady-in-waiting, Baroness Ramin. I saw at once that 
her Royal Highness had indulged in " a lively break- 
fast," for her face was flushed, and she addressed 
pleasantries to everybody — even promised to ride a la 
Florence Dixey if somebody would lend her a pair of 
breeches. 

" Nonsense 1 " cried the Princess of HohenzoUern. 
" Lottchen is bragging, I assure you ; everybody knows 
that she wears the trousers." 

" The real article, the r-e-a-1 article," retorted Char- 
lotte, adding with a shrug of the shoulders : " What 
suffices for the menage will not do at all for the manege." 

Then turning to Ramin, she continued: " Now I will 
show you how my sweet sister-in-law " (meaning the 
Empress) "mounts." 

She had her horse brought round to a platform 
reached by three sieps, and, ascending laboriously, 
raised herself on tiptoe and let herself fall into the 
saddle with a thud that caused the horse to stagger. 

"Just like a majestic sack of flour, eh?" she cried. 
** The more pity for the beast." Then she rode off, urg- 
ing the chestnut to all sorts of caprioles and fancy 
steps. 

Princess Therese was at her Royal Highness's side 
149 



150 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

like a flash, and as they cantered about, each trying 
to outdo the other in feats of daring, both laughed 
boisterously. 

But if courtiers have long ears, Nemesis has legs of 
corresponding caliber. Indeed, in this case the dread 
goddess must have worn seven-league boots, for twelve 
hours after the impertinent words had fallen from privi- 
leged lips word was sent around that ladies were not 
wanted at the forthcoming outing — neither ladyships, 
nor princesses of the blood royal! 

It being the first time that the Meiningen, Hohen- 
zollern, and Hohenau coterie were turned down pub- 
licly, the sensation in polite circles was tremendous. 

Next day attended her Majesty at Schloss Stern, in 
Grunewald. Was it the English hunting-costume that 
proved so becoming, or was it Wilhelm in his red coat 
and silk hat, or the recollection of the victory just won? 
Augusta Victoria looked fresh and rosy and resplendent 
as she galloped over the frozen ground. 

Of course, royal hunts are arranged with a view to 
fatigue their Majesties as little as possible, and, ac- 
cordingly, the boar was set free at a point where he 
could be brought to bay within a quarter of an hour. 
However, one must not run away with the idea that in 
our sphere promises are always kept or commands 
always obeyed. 

As a matter of record, royalty employs in its army 
of retainers scores of laggards, and while I admit that 
the all-highest boast no special virtues entitling them 
to a higher standard of ethics than Mr. Smith or Mrs. 
Brown, I will not disguise the fact that they are sub- 
ject to the same routine of annoyances as yourself and 
neighbors. • 

I remember that on the occasion of a visit to the 
Neues Palais by the late William Walter Phelps, of 
New York, who was American Minister to Berlin in 
the early nineties, her Majesty offered to show him the 
baby, and I was requested to fetch the child. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 151 

" May it please your Majesty," I said, " unless I 
am very much mistaken, the Prince drove out with his , 
nurse a couple of minutes ago." 

"That is impossible, Baroness," said the Kalserin. 
"I distinctly told Mrs. Matcham she must not leave 
before lunch." 

To make sure, I repaired to the nursery, where I 
found that my surmise was correct. 

"But why did nurse disobey.?" exclaimed her 
Majesty. 

" Begging your Majesty's pardon, she told Countess 
Brockdorff she knew herself when it was best to take 
out the youngster." 

I had naturally hesitated to say so ; but the Kaiserin, 
turning to Mr. Phelps, with a smile, said: "You 
perceive, Mr. Minister, we are all in the same boat 
with respect to servants. They are the real masters of 
every household. If you want to see that baby, I shall 
have to temporize with Mrs. Matcham." 

To return to the royal pig-trot. 

Their Majesties followed with the well-peopled 
"field"— that is to say, the latter kept together during 
the first mile or two, but, later, redcoats began to drop 
out, until at the finish scarcely a baker's dozen re- 
ported, among them, on his high English hunter, the 
Kaiser, very proud of his achievement. 

Wilhelm felt, I suppose, that for him to engage in 
such violent exercise was tempting fate, considering 
that, while his right arm only is of practical use in the 
management of the horse, exceptional care must be 
exercised for the protection of the other — not an easy 
undertaking while galloping among trees and through 
thickets. 

As usual. Kaiser and Kaiserin missed the best part 
of the fun, which followed in the wake of Therese Trani, 
the wife of the Hereditary Prince of Hohenzollern. 

If Therese Hohenzollern had been born Therese 
White or Black she would be considered vulgar, and no 



152 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

American woman, who respects herself, would address 
her a second time, but in royal princesses a fishwife's 
tongue and hankering for chorus-girl's high jinks passes 
for " chic " and a pretty wit. 

As it happened Madame Therese was the life of every 
party, particularly when she interpolated her speech 
with risque German phrases, affecting not to know their 
meaning; whether she took pot-luck in the mess-room 
or some Potsdam regiment, or encouraged her husband's 
young comrades to drag her along the lawn by her 
feet, a sport sometimes carried on in the garden of 
the villa in Augusta Strasse, Potsdam; whether she 
came to court and maddened " Dona " by coquetting 
with Wilhelm, or entertained her neighbors at a state 
dinner with an account of her first confinement, which 
unexpectedly occurred at a one-horse Mecklenburg 
watering-place, while the layette, ordered from Eng- 
land, was in the keeping of the custom house ; whether 
she danced, played cards, smoked cigars or attended a 
" churching " — there was always something to remem- 
ber of one's meeting with this more than lively young 
woman. 

They say Therese's brother-in-law, Karl Anton of 
Hohenzollern, had to leave Potsdam by night and in a 
fog, the Kaiser having granted him six-weeks' furlough 
in order that her husband's just wrath might cool. 
Afterward lovesick Karl Anton was sent into exile at 
Cassel. They also say Karl Anton married Josephine 
of Flanders, an unhappy creature, hardly able to speak 
a sentence connectedly, in order to get leave to return 
to Potsdam and occasionally catch a glimpse of jolly 
Therese — there are no end of rumors, yet her Royal 
Highness is certainly the last person to care. 

And her husband? He exhibited some fine passion 
once, but has settled down to a philosophical sort of 
life. The Princess he put in charge of Colonel von 
Bachmayer, an elderly man of great energy, who at- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 158 

tended her Royal Highness wherever she went and kept 
her out of trouble to the best of his ability. 

Bachmayer rode in Madame Therese's train, too, 
after that obstinate pig. There were, besides Karl 
Anton, a host of cavalrymen and sports. 

As Therese had the best horse, a start of fifty paces 
and rode like mad, she was bound to get to Spandau 
before their Majesties if she kept it up. Her horse 
did, but not her Royal Highness. 

When Therese was urging her steed through a clump 
of trees with overhanging branches, the tragedy of the 
forest of Ephraim was probably most foreign to her 
mind. But history repeats itself. Her skirt caught 
in the branches as did Absalom's hair, and she was left 
suspended, while her hunter pressed on. The men wit- 
nessed the bloodless accident with delighted wonder- 
ment, but before they could reach the unhappy King's 
daughter, she was on her hands and knees, and a wide 
rent showed in the seat of her riding trousers, while the 
skirt still hung overhead. 

At once a dozen cavaliers drew rein and dismounting 
assisted Therese to her feet. She struggled. " No, 
no ; don't you see I must sit down? " 

" Stop," said Bachmayer in tones of authority, 
" your Highness will stand with your back to the tree, 
while we will re-arrange your skirt in front," 

Sound advice this. 

"Now will your Highness gaze at the tree for a 
while.? " suggested the Colonel. 

" I'm so ashamed ! " faltered the Princess between 
giggles. 

" All unmarried men turn about face ! " commanded 
Bachmayer. Ours used to be a well-disciplined army, 
and the officers obeyed while Therese turned around, 
and, standing in the attitude of the Venus de Medici, 
allowed Karl Anton to draw enough hair-pins from her 
head to fasten what was left of the skirt onto her waist. 



154 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Meanwhile, one of the reserve horses had been fetched 
and the merry crowd started off again. 

Her Majesty's horses were selected more with refer- 
ence to handsome appearance and strength than to 
juvenile fire. Indeed, Augusta Victoria seldom rode one 
under the age of twelve, although, as a general rule, a 
decade was the age-limit for animals in the Kaiser's 
stables. Moreover, her horses were so perfectly trained 
and of such lamb-like disposition that, to quote once 
more the Princess of Meiningen, " they will not wink 
an eye or move an ear except on most gracious, all- 
highest command." Her Royal Highness's bit of 
comedy, depicting the Kaiserin in the act of mounting, 
was likewise founded on fact: a portable platform was 
kept in all the royal courtyards and parks. 

Yet these august personages never dream that their 
affections are transparent to the people about them. 
I was told by the Emperor's adjutant, Count Moltke, 
that when, on the occasion of a family excursion on 
horseback, he pointed out Prince William, praising him 
for his steady seat, her Majesty said: "Ah, he in- 
herited his horsemanship from me," a remark which 
caused the Kaiser to sniff with impatience. Still, the 
truth of their mere humanness was occasionally brought 
home to the King and Queen. 

Here are a couple of anecdotes to the point from 
Hubertusstock. The Kaiserin accompanied Wilhelm to 
an evening's rut-of-hart-shooting in a certain section 
of the forest, where the imperial Nimrod was certain 
of making a big haul. 

The pair drove off with high expectations, the Kaiser 
in his new " hunt uniform," the Kaiserin wearing a 
gown of white cloth, silver-braided. But though con- 
ditions seemed favorable — moon discreetly hidden be- 
hind clouds, wind blowing out of eminently correct quar- 
ters — something managed to frighten the stags away 
and out of reach as often as a fine pair of antlers came 
before William's barrel. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 155 

The Kaiser allowed himself to be fooled in this 
fashion three long hours, until finall;^ mg patience, 
he ordered the horses brought arouno^ Getting into 
the carriage, he noticed a,n old g nekeeper, who 
stared at the Kaiserin in a rather disrespectful 
manner. 

" What is it, my man ? " inquired the Kaiser, who 
was beginning to suspect ; perhaps jou can tell us why 
no confounded deer would come within range this 
evening." 

" To be sure. Majesty, plain as daylight, that. Any 
fool knows that animals are skeered of white." 

The remark was so apropos that Wilhelm overlooked 
its rudeness, and, turning to his wife with a mock bow, 
exclaimed : " That settles your bacon, Dona. In 
future I shall know better than to take a fashion-plate 
hunting with me." 

The disgruntled couple arrived at the chalet after 
midnight, and the Kaiser told me he would take sup- 
per alone, i.e., with his gentlemen. Accordingly- 
Augusta was in a fearful temper, though the cook had 
provided potatoes in their jackets and cold pork. 
Everything and everybody was in the wrong and was 
scolded. 

" Of course, none of you ladies knew enough to re- 
mind me that I possess not one garment fit for the 
chase." With these words the Kaiserin wound up a 
long series of complaints," adding: "Order Lampe to 
get up a full-skirted hunting-costume of the usual ma- 
terial, with green velvet trimmings, within forty-eight 
hours." 

" But his Majesty being so particular as to color," 
I ventured to suggest, " would it not be better to send 
a sample of cloth.? " 

" A good idea," cried our mistress, her face lighting 
up. " After his Majesty has retired, get the valet to 
cut a sample from one of the turnings of his suit and 
enclose that to Lampe. And be sure to use an envelope 



156 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

with the imprint: 'On his Majesty's Service.' That 
will carry it through by noon tomorrow." 

While his Majesty inflicted his costly presence upon 
the nobles and rich officials of Berlin and Potsdam 
according to his whims and preferences for society, his 
visits to the hunting-grounds of friends in all parts of 
Germany were matters of routine, as he looked upon the 
use of the country's preserves in the old feudal sense: 
as his sovereign right. 

Whoever, prince or private, entertained the Kaiser 
to a shooting once, was sure to receive, at the opening 
of the next season, a letter from the court marshal 
announcing that his Majesty will be graciously pleased 
to decimate his game on such and such days — this if the 
first hunt was entirely satisfactory. 

When his Majesty went to a shooting, he seldom 
stayed longer than two days, the cost of his entertain- 
ment being between forty and fifty thousand marks 
(eight to ten thousand dollars), and one need but 
glance at the preparations on the host's part to appre- 
ciate the cost of the outlay, which, moreover, was vastly 
larger at the first visit. 

The country residences of our Prussian grandees, 
you must know, were, as a general thing, quite innocent 
of sanitary arrangements, and often several rooms had 
to be entirely rebuilt and furnished with running water 
before his Majesty would set foot in the house. 

Now, an unsophisticated reader might think that to 
plead old-fashionedness would scare away William, but 
that is a miscalculation. If he scented a full game-bag 
on any baronial domain, he would invite himself and 
only when it was too late to raise objection did the 
court marshal put in the standing clainris of his master. 
A bedroom similar in all respects as to size and 
appointments to the Kaiser's own chamber at home, 
brass bedstead, horse-hair mattress, an enormous wash- 
stand, windows and doors secured by an endless number 
of curtains and portieres, and — here comes the rub — a 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 157 

connecting-room with the latest paraphernalia of the 
bath. 

" Mark Twain has written many funny things about 
the German and his tub, or the absence of the latter," 
said Court Marshal Count Eulenburg to me, after 
meeting the American humorist at a dinner given by 
the late General Verdy du Vernois ; " but he could sur- 
pass himself if I were free to give him only part of the 
correspondence I have had with our nobility on the 
subject of providing bathing facilities for his Majesty. 
How they struggle and twist and squirm against the 
introduction of this novelty, which, they claim, would 
destroy the harmonious appearance of rooms that for 
hundreds of years were untouched by the mode. One 
gentleman in the province of Prussia, tried to evade the 
obnoxious -obligation by suggesting that he dared not 
offer his Majesty a bath after one night's journey, as 
it involved the insinuation of dirtiness on his guest's 
part." 

Besides his bath, Wilhelm insisted upon most luxuri- 
ous bedroom furnishings, the carpeting throughout of 
country residences, a four-in-hand aid, a chef from 
some famous Berlin or Paris restaurant or hotel. Like- 
wise, some of his hosts had to build a carriage road, a 
mile, or perchance, ten miles long lest the invited guest 
cancel the arrangements at the last moment. 

And those Potemkin villages ! That nothing might 
grate on the imperial feelings, the baron or prince 
compelled his peasants to whitewash and paint farm- 
house and hovel, while he himself furnished greens and 
flags to decorate the streets, engaged torch bearers to 
light up the highway on the eve of the arrival and dur- 
ing the nights of the visit, and employed four hundred 
to five hundred beaters, at the very least, a week or 
longer. 

For the Kaiser was not content to shoot the game on 
his friend's domain; his host, if he loved his peace, 
would hire all the hare, deer or roe for a dozen Germau 



158 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

miles in the neighV orhood and let them '^be driven into 
his own preserves. Of course, the dislodged game did 
not remain voluntarily in its new environment, and had 
to be kept from running away by continuous beating 
up; sometimes, too, much game was trapped in other 
parts of the province and carried to and kept in thickets 
on the spot selected for the chase, to be released when 
the great slaughter began. Besides, Wilhelm seldom 
brought fewer than twenty gentlemen, and even more 
servants, all of whom must be lodged and fed and 
horsed, and a royal flunky in a strange house pretends 
to be almost as much as his master. Fed on scraps at 
home, he impudently demands the best of everything 
elsewhere, and generally succeeds in obtaining it, as 
complaints on the host's part would lay him open to 
suspicions of nearness. 

For the Kaiser himself and his titled friends, the 
caterers sent their choicest wares beforehand, all the 
delicacies of the season, and the next to follow ; under 
the load of mighty barrels branded in many languages, 
groaned the ancient cellar-beds of oaken beams, and 
mysterious bottles with dirty labels told of old vintages 
and lynx-eyed connoisseurs. 

And what said William to this splendid hospitality, 
this lavish expenditure for his benefit ? 

If everything went according to program, if game 
was plentiful, the weather fine, his bath and the cook- 
ing better than at his own house, he would remark, on 

leaving: "Be assured Madame," or (naming the 

host without prefix of courtesy or title), "I have 
enjoyed myself; and if one thing gave me more pleasure 
than the other, it was the fact that you made no fuss, 
asked the Kaiser to take pot-luck with you, so to speak. 
That is as it should be. I desire to be free to visit 
my people without causing them the least trouble or 
expense." 

But if weather or wind, the elements above or those 
below (in the kitchen), went against the imperial grain, 



SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 159 

if the populace's shouts of welcome did not seem hearty 
or loud enough, or if one of the other guests exhibited 
greater skill in britiging down game than himself, 
William simply ordered his carriage, drove back to the 
house, and went to bed. That happened in the course 
of years once or twice at each house visited, for there 
were yet some things completely oblivious to his 
Majesty's claims of omnipotence — game and guns. 

It seems incredible, but it's literally true, that a 
shortage of a couple of hundred hare cost Count Botho 
the proudest office under the Crown; that a single 
buck came near depriving the nation of the services of 
one of the ablest officers in the army; that for the sake 
of a few tough rabbits the Kaiser insulted a venerable 
general of his grandfather in a manner that would have 
resulted in a duel if rank did not make a crowned 
poltroon inviolable. 

One example of many: 

As long ago as the early nineties, the Kaiser tried to 
forestall the revolution that at last materialized in 
November, 1918, ordering the then President of the 
Prussian Ministry, Count Botho Eulenburg to railroad 
through the Diet and House of Lords an arbitrary anti- 
revolutionary bill of Wilhelm's own making, which 
attempted nothing less than the abolishment of the con- 
stitution — such as it was. Botho, working under the 
Kaiser's lash, acted like a bull in a china shop, the 
country was aroused, the politicians raised Cain and 
Chancellor Caprivi, a thorough Prussian, seized the 
opportunity to stab Botho in the back. As the noble 
Prussian nation heartily approved of the maneuver, 
William promptly disavowed Botho and upheld Caprivi. 

At the same time he decided on a visit to Castle 
Liebenberg, the country seat of his bosom friend, the 
infamous Philip Eulenburg, who^ at the time, had not 
yet made his appearance in the criminal court. Even 
at the height of his success William never could face 
the discomforts of political defeat. Unless affairs of 



160 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

state went exactly as he wished, he would run away 
and, ostrich like, hide his head far from the maddening 
crowd. Thus, when the Zaern aflPair was scandalizing 
the fatherland, William went carousing and fox hunting 
with Prince Eulenburg; cowardice or neglect of duty 
— which ? 

At Philli's seat, the Kaiser found all Eulenburgs ex- 
cept Botho: the Ambassador; the court marshal; the 
commander of the Body Uhlans, and Major Count 
Eulenburg. 

The supper was of the finest; roast turkey, saddle 
of roe, stewed cherries and cucumber salad, courses 
which the Emperor likes to eat wholesale. Having 
chopped the tender meat with his knife-fork, he mixes 
it with the sweets, potatoes and greens into a hotch- 
potch and swallows with relish. " For dessert we had 
biscuit pudding with chocolate sauce ; is there anything 
better in the wide, wide world? " he demanded. 

The dinner was followed by the usual noisy enter- 
tainment, at the conclusion of which Saltzmann, as 
" lightning portraitist," caricatured various members of 
the party present, winding up with a cartoon exhibit- 
ing the hasty evacuation of the Reichstag at the 
entrance of Count Botho armed with a mace, emblem 
of imperial authority. 

" Don't wipe that out ! " cried the Kaiser when 
Saltzmann was about to apply the sponge ; " I will 
telegraph Botho to attend us tomorrow, and in the 
evening we will spring this surprise on him and hear 
what he has to say." 

The imperial weathercock had veered again, this 
time showing a smiling face to Botho — owing to the 
good dinner, no doubt. 

But on the morrow the two gun-chargers who stood 
behind the Kaiser in the hunting field often remained 
idle for three or four minutes in succession — think of 
it ! — and the game was at no time thick enough to admit 
of a wholesale massacre, such as William delights in. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 161 

So, when after three hours it was reported that he 
had Mled only one hundred and one hares, he sent for 
his carriage and without further ado drove back to 
Liebenberg, there to seek the seclusion of his chamber, 
from which he did not emerge until next morning. 

Count Botho attempted to wait upon the Kaiser, as 
commanded, and was told to " get out of his Majesty's 
way." The chase had been " amateurishly arranged ; " 
there was " no discipline in those confounded beaters," 
and " one could have better sport walking through the 
park of Sans Souci than on such preserves." 

The Kaiser's correspondence with his wife during his 
frequent absences from home consisted mainly of tele- 
graphic reports of the number of game he killed. We 
ladies, therefore, took little interest in these messages, 
though etiquette and policy compelled! us to feign 
enthusiasm. But once, when the Kaiser was at Proeck- 
elwitz there arrived a telegram that caused the liveliest 
concern, not to say excitement. " Just shot a buck 
which Kessel shot past. Wilhelm," read the badly-con- 
structed telegram. 

Augusta Victoria laughed and joked about it; but 
the rest of us saw in the triumphant tone of the missive 
only the disturbing evidence of a wrangle between two 
friends, the Kaiser and his efficient adjutant-general 
who, by the way, was a man of sense, exercising the 
best influence over his erratic master. 

In this case the breach in friendship of long standing 
was allowed to heal ; but a similar incident cost William 
the affection of one of the royal family's stoutest sup- 
porters. Count Lehndorff, who had been the favorite 
adjutant-general of the old Emperor. 

Out of compliment to Wilhelm, who regarded every- 
body who had enjoyed his grandsire's friendship with a 
sort of veneration, the old general had been placed next 
to the Kaiser at a chase in Neugattersleben. 

As on that eventful occasion in Liebenberg, the hare 
did not rush to the slaughter as fast as William liked 



162 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

and at the finish " only " two hundred and ten leapers 
were placed to his credit. His neighbor, Count Lehn- 
dorff, brought down forty. 

" Two hundred and_ ten plus forty makes a round 
quarter of a thousand — a royal number for a bad day," 
exclaimed William, who was in great ill-humor. " Con- 
found the impudence of the fellow who shoots game 
coming within range of my rifle and which properly 
belongs to me." 

At this insult, Lehndorff's right hand instinctively 
seized his hunting knife, but his temper got the better 
of him for a single moment only. 

" The fellow who handed William the First the 
diploma that made him German emperor may well 
consider himself above the charge of impudence," he 
said, in his simple and impressive style. And, turning 
to his friends, continued. " I will not quarrel with the 
grandson of the king whom I attended in three victori- 
ous wars and at whose side I courted death at Konigs- 
gratz when all seemed lost." 

A stiff bow, and the old governor got into his trap. 
He ever after avoided William's company " as that of 
a madman's." 

And as a butcher exhibits his meat (and is proud of 
the display), so the Kaiser showed off the trophies of 
his skill as a death-giver. The most prominent object 
in his study was a long table, covered with green cloth, 
containing the antlers of the roebucks killed by him in 
the course of the year, while under the table, and all 
around on the floor, were the bigger antlers of slain 
deer. 

Ministers of state delivering reports upon which 
hinged the fate of government measures, of peace or 
war, or, perchance, the life of some doomed man appeal- 
ing to the king's grace, had to be prepared for inter- 
ruptions : " Look at this ten ' ender ' " (meaning antlers 
with the given number of branches) — " the prime stag 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 163 

among a battalion I mowed down at " some place or 
other. 

Gun-charger Rieger had care of these trophies, and 
had little time for anything else. At great dinners, 
when he stood behind the Kaiser's chair, this man was 
often consulted about dates and incidents as William 
told visitors of his killings in time of peace. And the 
world knows how he kept up his record as a butcher 
during more than four years. Instead of hares he 
massacred children ; instead of deer he slew women and 
old men, nurses, priests and prisoners. He should 
worry ! 

While the members of the Kaiser's staff often asserted 
that he was never in better humor than after success- 
fully playing some trick upon a friend, it shall not be 
denied that he was agreeable enough if he had half a 
mind to be. He loved a merry jest at a stag party, 
knew the art of making pleasant conversation ; sang, 
badly, it is true, but nevertheless entertainingly 
enough among friends; enjoyed what he considered 
" good " music, and was a clever^ hand at any game — 
billiards, skat, poker, and whatnot? and, better still, he 
never allowed the stakes to go above a quarter of a cent 
a point. 

If Diana smiled upon him, and the host showed a 
lucky hand in the selection of the menu, he usually 
ordered his portfolio of photographs to be brought in 
after dinner, and, leaving everybody a choice of pic- 
tures, inscribed his name, together with the date, and 
often some cheerful words of remembrance, on a dozen 
or half a hundred pasteboards, as the case might be. 

Some of these signed photographs were given to 
American friends — the Armours, Goulds, Vanderbilts, 
Morgans, etc. Whether they kept them after the inva- 
sion and desolation of Belgium, I don't know, but I do 
know that at many English townhouses and country- 
seats bonfires of Kaiser portraits flared up gayly after 



164 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

August 14, 1914. I remember calling upon the Mar- 
chioness of Londonderry one morning in the last week 
of August of that year, when her Ladyship's secretary 
came in to say that he " found 'em all as listed." 

" Then into the kitchen range with 'em, frames and 
all," said the Marchioness. 

"Had I better a tear 'em up first.? " suggested the 
secretary. 

" It would be a waste of time ; no one wants pictures 
of that German swine now " — this from her Ladyship, 
an amiable woman, noted for her polite accomplish- 
ments. 

At the time when the Kaiser's hunting mania was at 
its height, the late Eugene Richter made his great 
speech against William's huntiing companions, who, 
he thundered, manipulated the Kaiser at will. 

" My African empire for a lettre de cachet that will 
send this pig-dog to Spandau ! Would I not 
gladly forget all about him there ! " shouted the Kaiser 
at dinner, when the report of the tirade reached 
him. 

" His African empire ! " If it had gone as cheaply 
as that, Mr. Wilson might have saved himself much 
anxiety. 

As to Richter, William's fellow-pig-trotters certainly 
had influence with him, but to obtain the sway Richter 
imputed to them, they would have had to go to school 
with Anna, the cook. She was the queen-bee of the 
ScJiloss while turkey was in season, and, if fate had 
made her a lady, instead of a poor country-wench, she 
might have had first place in the royal menage for the 
asking, with the proviso, however, that she never left 
off feeding the Kaiser's gluttonous appetite for the 
Thanksgiving bird. 

Whenever our court marshal discovered a new victim 
eager to place his game at William's disposal, he was 
careful to inform the noble gentleman that the regula- 
tion hunt dinner should consist of at least six courses. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 165 

But when the Kaiser assembled his generous friends at 
his own fireside " simplicity " was trumps, dinners being 
tabooed, and only breakfast, late luncheon, and sup- 
pers were offered, where cutlets and beefsteak took the 
place of roast, and fried apples formed the dessert, 
with beer or light wines, and punch as a substitute for 
champagne. 

So the imperial guests usually made for the nearest 
restaurant as soon as they returned to town. 

" They come from dinner at court," remarked the 
people, who recognized the hunt uniform ; " no wonder 
they are famished. Prussian provisioning makes lean 
horses." 

I once heard the Kaiser say : " If circumstances pre- 
vent the king from going to war — why, he must do the 
next best thing — make war on beasts. Hence, my 
devotion to the chase. I want to become accustomed to 
bloodshed so I may face those most frightful massacres, 
which The Day — our world's war — will bring about 
without turning a hair." 

If you think this an original, as well as a wickedly 
criminal,, atrocious idea, you are mistaken. 

Mohammed Toghlak, an Asiatic tyrant, of bloody 
fame, at one time arranged a tiger hunt on a greater 
scale of magnificence than he had ever before at- 
tempted: Hundreds of war elephants, thousands of 
retainers and beaters-up! 

But while proceeding to the neighborhood selected, 
the Sultan fell to thinking, and, after reflecting, sud- 
denly changed his mind. 

" I am tired of running after overgrown cats," he 
told his people — " such is unworthy of a great king. 
We will hunt men this time." 

" But these are your Majesty's faithful and peace- 
ful subjects." 

" Never mind — I crave the sport." 
, Then the tiger-hunters turned man-hunters, one and 
all, and not until 25,000 men, women and children — 



166 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

25,000, count 'em^ — were slain did Mohammed cry 
" halt." 

Twenty-five thousand' was quite a record two hun- 
dred or three hundred years ago. If the Kaiser in 
the great war had had his own way, he would not have 
stopped even after 25,000,000 of men, women and 
children had been massacred. 

When the alienists get ready to examine the mental 
status of William Hohenzollem, they will study care- 
fully his past mania for travel; his weird restlessness, 
of pre-war times ; his desire to be moving on train or 
motor cars — symptoms of a disease that may or may 
not denote some deep-seated mental disturbance. He 
did not care where he was going — as long as he was on 
the move. 

On either of his fifty odd estates, William was always 
suffering with ennui. He could not bear to stay at 
home. 



CHAPTER X 

DuEiNG the war It looked sometimes as if the furies of 
hate and general contempt were giving William no 
rest — were lashing him East and West, North and 
South. He was known to be forever flitting from one 
battlefront to another, from Schleswig to Hungary and 
back again. No doubt many of his journeys wero 
dictated by fear; attempts to escape bombing parties, 
the frowns of the populace, or the wailings of the 
numerous petty German kings and kinglets who were 
holding the Hohenzollern responsible for the debacle 
in sight. 

But glancing at the records, kept by Baroness Von 
Larisch, we learn that William-Prince-of-Peace, was as 
much of a travel-maniac as William-who-lifted-the-lid- 
ofF-Hell. At one time within the space of a few months, 
he went to Stockholm and Copenhagen, Frankfurt, 
Stuttgart, Munich, Vienna, Rome, Hamburg, Leipzig, 
Breslau, Stettin, Buckeburg, Oldenburg, Wilhelm- 
shafen, Schwedt, Weimar, Brunswick, Dresden, Osborne, 
Sandown Bay, Aldershot, Carlsruhe, Strassburg, Metz, 
Munster, Minden, Hannover, Schwerin, Athens, Dessau, 
Darmstadt, Worms, Bremen, Bonigsberg, etc.- — alto- 
gether stopping and holding court in thirty-seven cities 
and towns in Germany and abroad, many of which he 
visited three or four times. And there were hunting 
trips besides. 

To find excuses for this almost perpetual absence 
from the seat of government, all sorts of excuses are 
invented by William. He went away " to take a bird's- 
eye view of politics, and to <^ome back unbiased by par- 
tisan preferences." If he neglected to look up the 
King of the Belgians, " our African possessions may 
suffer;" a month's sea-voyage afforded the Kaiser a 

167 



168 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

much-wanted " opportunity for studying his inner 
man," and who would deny the necessity of such an 
undertaking ? 

But the real motive that prompted these journeys 
was the morbid restlessness of which the Kaiser is 
possessed, and that scourged him, a crowned Ahasue- 
rus, from town to city, over seas and mountains. 

The Kaiser's adjutants, military and civil secretar- 
ies, representatives of the various cabinets, body-physi- 
cians, valets, -wardrobemen, keeper of the silverware, 
cellarer, master of the horse, coachmen, grooms, mouth- 
cooks, kitchen employes and the host of chasseurs and 
flunkies who accompanied him on each trip, were so well 
trained in handling the endless accessories and bag- 
gage, that an order to get ready at an hour's notice 
neither surprised nor rattled either. 

If the tour or outing on which they were about to 
enter had been under consideration for some time, a 
printed itinerary was furnished to the chief of each 
department, but quite frequently no one was able -to 
learn anything beyond the hour of departure. 

The Kaiser, you know, addressed his attendants only 
in monosyllables, and did not even take the trouble to 
speak distinctly. To ask repetition of a sentence, or 
to put any question whatever, would have been an 
unheard-of breach of etiquette, so nothing remained to 
do but to take chances and work ahead in the dark, 
the more so, as the adjutants often knew no more of 
his Majesty's intentions than the small stableboys who 
went with every imperial party to assist at tennis. 

Especial secrecy was observed if the destination was 
some town or fortress in the far west or east of the 
Empire, where, after a night of travel, the war-lord 
intended to mount at five or six o'clock in the morning, 
and, attended by trumpeters and a formidable suite, 
ride through the streets alarming the garrison. 

If the wardrobe-master on duty suspected that the 
journey was an errand of that kind, he exhausted every 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 160 

possible means of solving the mystery, and more than 
once have I aided the poor fellow by trying to learn 
from the Empress what was wanted. Sometimes, 
though, even her Majesty was kept in ignorance. 

The wardrobeman's anxiety will be better under- 
stood when I mention that William made it a rule 
always to wear the uniform of the principal regiment 
garrisoned in the place visited ; the attendant unable to 
draw from among the baggage the military dress would 
quickly find himself dropped from the salary list. 

When, in addition, it is stated that a cavalry, uni- 
form, for instance, consists of fourteen distinct parts, 
the reader may gain an idea of the work involved by 
these sudden journeys, for one uniform would of course 
not do ; there must be three or four in reserve, and also 
civilian and hunting dress. 

In a similar predicament as the wardrobeman was the 
stable-master. Will an infantry, cavalry or artillery 
horse be wanted? for his Majesty rode a different 
breed of animal with each body of troops. Every time 
inforaiation was withheld in the manner described, six 
horses, two of each kind, must be taken along for his 
Majesty, besides consignments of carriage-horses and 
vehicles and numerous mounts for the suite, all of which 
increased the cost of railway journeying enormously, 
for, though most of the German railways are property 
of the state, the Kaiser had to pay mileage when he 
travelled as a private individual. Still, as his motto was : 
" I-am-the-state," the state railways derived precious 
little revenue from William. 

The imperial train generally pulled out of the station 
at ten o'clock at night, as the Kaiser never allowed busi- 
ness to interfere with his own convenience, and, if, for 
some reason or other, he wanted to rise earlier than 
usual, he retired soon after supper to make up for 
time that would be lost. Furthermore, the train must 
proceed at the slowest possible pace so that the " all- 
highest's " sleep be not disturbed. 



170 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

That the salon-train was furnished with all the 
luxuries imaginable — a rolling palace containing recep- 
tion, dining, scullery, and stables — need hardly be ex- 
plained; the only things lacking were accommodations 
for the servants, who, valet and hostler alike, must sleep 
in chairs or on the floor. 

At five o'clock, or earlier, a cup of tea was served 
to the monarch, the bath and toilet followed, and then 
breakfast, which latter was served with much more 
state and with a greater variety of food than at home. 
So fortified and refreshed, the Kaiser and his paladins 
mounted at dawn, and, preceded by buglers, galloped 
into town " to kill the soldiers' and, incidentally, the 
citizens' morning sleep." 

One of the imperial adjutants described the mode 
of procedure at the alarming of the garrison of 
Posen, since become a Polish city once more, as 
follows : 

" During breakfast, and on our ride to the inner 
town, his Majesty talked of nothing but the ' stupid 
faces ' the commander and officers, suddenly roused 
from sleep, would make, and drew some rather risque 
pictures of the consternation and discomforts bound 
to follow the signals, so that one of our party re- 
marked : ' These provincial petticoats will not thank 
your Majesty for making war on them.' " 

"* Pshaw!' said the Kaiser, * what matters that.'' 
The devotion of my brave boys in blue, some of whom 
I will aid to escape without paying their bills, will 
recompense me for any loss of admiration in those 
quarters.' 

" By this time we had been admitted, after giving 
the parole of the day," continued my informant, " and 
presently our trumpeters' blasts and the sharp clang of 
our horses' hoofs resounded in the main street. Posen, 
though only half Polish, has seen so many sieges, in- 
surrections, and kindred revolutionary doings, that 
warlike activity has no terror for her citizens; a coup 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 171 

de main in broad daylight would no more disconcert 
them, I believe, than a good-sized shower. 

" Windows were opened and shut as we cantered 
along, men, women and children in night-dresses cast- 
ing hasty glances at the strange cavalcade through 
half-raised Venetian blinds. Now and again a military 
person, semi-dressed, drew himself up into regulation 
attitude, hand raised to the side of his head ; one might 
imagine hearing his naked heels click together. 

" Proceeding at a rapid rate, we encountered several 
small troops of soldiers bound for the drill-grounds; 
but the Kaiser ordered them to fall behind, while their 
officers gave the report to the adjutants. On Wilhelm 
Platz the Emperor had the satisfaction of stopping 
two cavalry horses which, while being saddled, heard 
the signal and ran off to take their places in array; 
altogether we made an awful lot of noise and provoked 
more. 

" Meanwhile, we had reached the principal hotel, and 
there, at one of the upper windows, was a well-known 
face, adorned by fierce blonde mustachios, peeping out 
between two lithe figures in white, — the one a popular 
coryphee of the Berlin Royal Opera House, the other 
a well known ingenue of one of the leading Berlin 
theaters. 

" * What do I see? ' cried the Emperor. * This looks 
as if my ballet and player folks had preceded us to 
Posen.' 

'' ' It is the first instance that these two branches of 
art appear on terms of camaraderie,' remarked Adju- 
tant von Moltke, and everybody laughed. 

" The surprised Adonis, Baron von X , of the 

Body Hussars, was invited to the Emperor's circle at 
the banquet in the officers' mess that followed the 
parade, and his Majesty amused himself royally at his 
expense, as, indeed, he treated the whole expedition 
as a huge joke, arranged to afford him a novel enter- 
tainment." 



172 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Travelling was such a mania with the Kaiser, that, 
when business of state or the fact that there was 
nobody or nothing to visit forbade his going abroad, 
he occasionally spent a night in his railway carriage, 
stalled at Wildpark Station, only five minutes from the 
Neues Palais-, on the plea that on the following morning 
he must be in Berlin at some unearthly hour. 

He indulged in this queer pastime with increasing 
regularity until one night, when, about to drive to the 
station from some festivity held at the Marble Palace, 
the Kaiserin took courage to threaten an invasion of 
his bachelor quarters, which, she insisted, must possess 
some special attraction. 

As her Majesty was not quite wrong in this, William 
desisted from following his inclination then and for 
several months, his compliance being all the more dis- 
agreeable to him, as the Empress was in an interesting 
condition. 

But Her Majesty's interference was not only justi- 
fied, it was likewise well-timed, for just then there was 
under way a formidable conspiracy among the royal 
servants, who, underpaid as they were and nourishing 
a sneaking spirit of insurrection, had conspired to 
inform a member of the Reichstag opposition of the 
fact that his Majesty was in the habit of using a 
public depot for his sleeping apartment. 

In that way they expected to get even with William 
for compelling them to spend so many nights in their 
clothes. Of course. Parliament has no business to 
inquire into the sovereign's manner of spending his 
nights, but the public was doubtless interested in the 
accompanying circumstance that, when his Majesty 
chose to repose at Wildpark Station, traffic was seri- 
ously interfered with in order that the "all highest" 
sleep be not disturbed. 

" Over a hundred officials and workmen stay awake 
tonight to facilitate the Kaiser's fad for occupying 
his car," said Count Eulenburg to me one evening, 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 173 

when the Kaiser was setting out for his wheeled 
boudoir. 

" Impossible ! — a hundred persons? *' 

" A hundred or more — the lists have gone through 
my hands. Reflect a moment on the work involved: 
Freight trains must be sidetracked,] and passenger 
trains are compelled to reduce their speed, while the 
ordinary signals, steam-whistling and ringing of bells, 
have to be abandoned, and the number of employes 
doubled, to forestall mishaps." 

If disgruntled servants had told this story to the 
Socialists, the inevitable discussion might have seriously 
interfered with the Kaiser's enjoyment of the Wilhelm 
Canal opening festivities then about to begin. 

William stayed at home when there was no one to 
visit, I said, and may add that willing victims of 
imperial travelmania grew scarcer year by year. How 
well I remember the Kaiser's return from his first North- 
land trip, when he spoke of his visit to Copenhagen, 
and how he had succeeded in wheedling King Christian 
and Queen Louise. 

" They can be of great service to me with Czar 
Alexander," he said, " and I promised to stay with 
them a couple of days every year on my way to or 
from Northland." 

All of us around the royal board, officials and guests, 
looked at one another in astonishment, for the poverty 
of the reigning family of Denmark is notorious. In- 
deed, almost everybody at court had heard the Kaiser, 
at one time or another, quote Field Marshal Count 
Moltke's observation in one of his letters to his brother 
Adolph : 

" Poor King of Denmark^ The founder of a new 
dynasty, he began his reign by losing one-half of the 
realm ! Sweeping reductions were inevitable, indeed, it 
is doubtful if this state can continue to exist as an 
independent kingdom." 

Besides, it was an open secret that the Czar, when 



174< SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 

visiting his father-in-law, paid for his accommoda- 
tions like the millionaire he was, — for his and for that 
of all his relatives making Denmark their summer home, 
and rejoicing in the annual family reunions. The 
Kaiser knew that ; he had even obtained a corroboration 
of the story in Stockholm, as it turned out by and by ; 
was he, then, determined to become one of the Gzar's 
pensioners, or did he not care whether he embarrassed 
his venerable brother of Denmark, half of whose in- 
heritance Prussia had swallowed up? 

Reference to the minutes of the journey reveal the 
fact that at the state dinner in Castle Amalienborg, the 
Kaiser, answering King Christian's toast, literally 
said: " I submit my sincerest thanks for your Majesty's 
welcome, and hope that I may be permitted to visit 
your Majesty frequently in the same way." 

It was the last toast spoken that evening, and the 
members of the Kaiser's suite do not know whether the 
implied question was honored by an invitation in 
private. Certain it is, however, that his Majesty had 
no further occasion " to eat the Danes out of house 
and home," for, although the court of Copenhagen was 
annually advised of his Majesty's contemplated north- 
ern trips, it always acknowledged the notification in 
such cold terms that any wislr to follow it up by a 
promise to call and take pot-luck was forestalled. 

After the bustle occasioned by Wilhelm's prepara- 
tions for travel, life in the Neues Palais, which was 
never brilliant, but often spectacular, became duller 
and more insipid than ever. Entertainments were com- 
pletely abandoned and economy was the word heard on 
every side. The court and house marshals gave strict 
orders that expenses be cut all round ; a number of the 
servants were shipped to Berlin, so that their board 
wages, to which they were entitled while in Potsdam, 
might be saved; only flowers from the royal gardens 
dared be used for decoration, while great loads were 
bought from different surveyors during the Kaiser's 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 175 

residence at home, and, finally, the expenses of the kit- 
chen were reduced two-thirds, because the Empress 
took meals privately with the children. 

But the Kaiser, sometimes all of a sudden, burst 
anew into the midst of our humdrum existence, having 
left his friends abruptly, or his business unfinished ; 
occasionally, it was said, press criticism brought him 
back earlier than anticipated. Hence he employed a 
day or so dispatching the most urgent affairs of state, 
and immediately set the ball of courtly entertainments 
rolling. He would order a dinner of a hundred covers 
or more for next day, and again, while that was in 
progress, invite his guests, or part of them, to accom- 
pany him on a yachting expedition on the Havel lakes. 

Gun-charger Rieger, who, in his gold-embroidered 
dress, stood behind the Kaiser's chair on festive occa- 
sions, often conveyed a brief command of that kind 
to the house marshal on duty in this fashion : " His 
Majesty's yacht Alexandra and so and so many auxili- 
ary yachts must be ready at such and such an hour," 
— usually at four or five, if the meal began between one 
and two. 

To execute this imperial wish, telegraph, telephone, 
and mounted messengers were plentifully employed in 
an effort to drum together officers and crew, hire vessels, 
and secure a band. Furthermore the personnel of the 
coffee and tea kitchen and confectionery had to be sent 
to the steamer with their outfit, for each of the five 
meals to which their Majesties were accustomed must 
be served punctually. 

Promptly at the hour named, the marshal on duty 
" submitted " that carriages were waiting to bring their 
Majesties and the company to the embarking-place, 
and, before the vessel left, the official took heart to ask 
his master where he commanded that supper shall be 
served. 

Maybe his Majesty answered, carelessly: " Pfauen 
Insel," or, " Park of the Marble Palace," " at eight." 



176 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

The first is a small wooded island in the Havel, 
containing a semi-furnished royal villa that affords a 
certain amount of space, but little else, for the accom- 
modation of guests. The castellan of the place selected 
for the invasion was now hurriedly informed, and the 
stable-master set about getting ready ten or more so- 
called kitchen vans to transport all that was necessary ; 
refrigerators and hot-closets, table-linen, basketfulls of 
silver and plate, china and crystal, wines, meats, vege- 
tables and delicacies, lamps and candelabra, and a thou- 
sand and one accessories. 

All these things were under the care of certain offi- 
cials and servants, and, the staif being thoroughly 
organized, the whole train was equipped in an incredi- 
bly short while and started for its destination, the 
court marshal following in his carriage to superintend 
the arrangements nota bene if the Kaiser had not mean- 
while made up his mind to go elsewhere. 

For the places of rendezvous were changed with 
alarming frequency, and before a cavalcade started for 
a certain castle or park, the men usually offered to 
lay wages that upon their arrival they would find a 
telegram ordering supper in some other lodge or villa, 
or on the borders of some lake five or ten miles to the 
south, or east, or west, as the case might be. 

Once they were chased in this manner from Chariot- 
ten Hof to Wildpark, and from there to the Enten- 
fang, far out in the royal hunting grounds. The 
Entenfang is a romantic spot, such as young lovers 
might select for a picnic ; but imagine the tumult and 
work which the impromptu establishment of a royal 
table of from twenty to one hundred covers must occa- 
sion, when the nearest castle or royal villa is ten miles 
ofF. 

The vans had to be sent back to the Neues Palais 
for tables, chairs, carpets and a little tent for the 
toilet, while the nearest military post furnished field 
cooking-apparatus, and a dozen or more horses were 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 177 

driven lame travelling to and fro with heavy loads. 
The damage caused on occasions like this by broken 
crockery, cr^^stal and ruined furniture also reached a 
high figure. 

Foreign visitors at our court frequently wondered 
how it was possible for one man to give employment 
to three hundred and fifty horses in driving and riding, 
as the Emperor did. The story of these whimsical 
excursions explains that point, for, aside from the 
horses needed for the service, carriages (or motor cars), 
must be sent to fetch their Majesties and suite and 
company from some distant place, perhaps, while others 
were collecting the ladies and gentlemen in Potsdam 
and neighborhood, or from incoming trains, who had 
been " commanded " to be present at supper at some 
place where at the time stipulated no sign of life 
existed. 

At twelve or one o'clock in the morning, when the 
imperial master, his titled suite and his friends, had 
forgotten, in several hours' sleep, all about the forty- 
five minutes of entertainment that kept a small army of 
men, women and beasts on the run since lunch, the vans 
and carry-alls returned to the palace, often awakening 
many a noble lord and lady who wondered that any liv- 
ing creature dared disturb their august slumber. 

When the Kaiser was at home, his conversation per- 
petually turned on the subject of future outings, and 
his secretaries and adjutants were kept busy scouring 
the papers for items that promised excuses for a visit 
to one place or another. 

As soon as an opening was discovered, the court 
marshal must find ways and means to secure an invita- 
tion for the Kaiser, and to that end either the military 
authorities, the chief of county or some prince or 
aristocrat living in the neighborhood, received instruc- 
tions, which in many cases were most eagerly followed, 
for William's presence in any place, not his capital, 
wa§ a guarantee for no end of advertisement, Some-^ 



178 SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 

times, though, it was quite difficult to persuade the 
municipal authorities, the worthy men being afraid of 
the cost of the undertaking. 

If neither cities nor country districts, neither the 
North German Lloyd nor the Hamburg Line, neither 
the shipyards nor yacht or hunting clubs at home or 
abroad, held out allurements, the Kaiser, quickly re- 
solved, made opportunities for travel or display. 

He observed, for instance, that it was so and so 

many years since the Regiment received an 

honored flag. 

" Let's grant it a new set of colors," said William, 
and presently parades, religious ceremonies, speechi^ 
fyings, dinners and tattoos were in the air. Or, all 
regiments being provided with flags, his Majesty felt 
" graciously pleased " to bestow on one or another 
" ensign ribbons," an act yielding as much in the way 
of spectacular splendor as the other. 

When we went to Rome the King of Italy said the 
Kaiser^ train of eighty people reminded him of the 
deluge; but our three days' stay at Hanover cost 
nearly half as much as the tour in the Peninsula; one- 
third of that amount was expended for carpets and 
rugs. The royal castles, you must know, are empty 
barns for the most part, and whenever either of the 
Majesties visited the residences in Breslau, Konigsberg, 
Cassel, Wiesbaden, Hamburg, and Stettin, or wheh 
William went to his various hunting-boxes, whole car- 
loads of furniture, pictures, decorative material, and 
'all the necessary' silver, linen and kitchen utensils 
must be sent ahead, together with a full force of ser- 
vants, horses and carriages, food and forage. 

Fancy, then, the tumult occasioned by the meeting 
iDetween the Romanoffs and HohenzoUerns in the capi- 
tal of Silesia, when two palaces had to be furnished 
from top to bottom! The robbing of Peter to pay 
Paul was almost pitiful to behold ; my mistress actually 
had to give up her favorite damask curtains, which she 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 179 

bought out of her own money for Wilhelmshohe, to 
garnish the connubial couch of Nicholas and Alix, while 
she herself had to sleep in a bed once occupied by the 
plebeian King Jerome, brought on from Cassel. 

The pieces de resistance in the home improvised for 
their Russian Majesties in Breslau were taken from the 
consignment of Empire furniture, which one of the 
electors of Hesse bought in Paris some fifty years ago 
and for which payment was refused. His Royal High- 
ness's Diet had to liquidate the bill in the end, and 
when the Prussians annexed the country, they promptly 
seized the furniture as the country's own. 



CHAPTER XI 

The low grade of intelligence which ruled the im- 
perial court of Germany despite its much advertised 
" kultur " is glowingly set forth in these records of 
Berlin court life as Baroness Larisch saw and super- 
intended it. 

Although very partial to splendor and festivities, 
the Kaiser hated nothing more than the fetes which 
etiquette compelled him to give annually in the Berlin 
Schloss. He hated them principally because that 
magnificent pile, so formidable from the outside, being 
designed for Brandenburg society at the beginning of 
the eighteenth century, was entirely inadequate to ac- 
commodate the many thousands privileged nowadays to 
dance, eat and drink with Wilhelm. 

Of course there was always room for the " AU- 
highest," no matter if his company be packed like sar- 
dines. The discomfort of his guests was no concern 
of his, but the ocular demonstration of the unsuitable- 
ness of his house hurt his tender feelings. ' It sorely 
aggravated him to be reminded of the fact that he was 
not rich enough to build reception-rooms equal to the 
demands of the times. 

" If my ancestors could afford to construct this 
castle, why should not I erect one suitable to my re- 
quirements?" he argued, forgetting the fact that not 
the H'ohenzollerns, but the Prussian people, paid for 
the Schloss and were all but bankrupted in doing so, 
The builders. Elector Frederick and the first two Kings 
of Prussia, promised to pay back the millions wrung 
from their pockets — when their alchemist should suc- 
ceed in making yellow metal. 

The castle was finished under false pretense, and the 

180 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 181 

lying necromancer was harmed, which proves that the 
big pile, commonly believed to be the Hohenzollerns' 
private property, may be seized and sold for the bene- 
fit of the allied governments. It might be turned into 
a first-class hotel or factory — a point worth remember- 
ing. 

The winter fetes at our court were institutions in 
their way, the splendor of which the Kaiser's favor or 
disfavor might enhance or reduce, but even his enmity 
could not blot them out. 

To do that would seem too much like breaking with 
time-honored customs and taking away the perquisites, 
of two mighty classes: the trades-peoples' profits, and 
the aristocracy's chief opportunity for disporting its 
few remaining hereditary privileges. Only in case of 
court mourning, or great national disasters, may the 
fetes be curtailed, and never was a king more eager to 
take advantage of such an excuse than William. 

When his granduncle, Prince Alexander, died, his 
first words were : " Now we may rid ourselves of the 
company of the sweet plebs, for this winter at least," 
and the grand-master was straightway ordered to re- 
call the invitations for carnival. 

Yet one cannot mourn a relative of the seventh or 
eighth degree forever, and the Kaiser all the more 
readily consented to give one ball before the end of 
the season, as the municipal council of Berlin at that 
time was particularly obstreperous, and as it was ex- 
pected that by a lavish expenditure of money flowing 
into the people's coffers its good offices could be gained. 

So, when almost everybody had given up the hope of 
dancing and supping " at Kaiser's," several thousand 
ladies and gentlemen were made happy by receiving the 
coveted " commands." 

I don't deny that the average Berlin-bred man or 
woman is more fit for a Third Avenue speak-easy than 
a Fifth Avenue parlor, but behold their master, the 
" All-highest." It was rather noticeable when the tone of 



182 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

his conversation with German subjects, both women and 
men, did not smack of the tap-room. 

Once, while Wilhelm was entertaining a young un- 
married countess at a hunt-dinner, I heard him insinu- 
ate, on an innocent remark dropped by the girl, a 
double entendre which I should blush to repeat to my 
mistress, if I were a man. And to make it worse, he 
insisted upon reiterating the offensive interpretation 
over and over again to the young lady's utmost cha- 
grin. And that happened in the house of his best 
friend. 

Madame von Scholl, wife of the imperial adjutant- 
general, was on very familiar terms with William; she 
was jolly and good looking, fat and over forty. 

Born in Southern Germany, Madame was not ham- 
pered by that punctiliousness and the conventional 
scruples which make the Prussian lady of quality so 
detestable and the most scandalous thing she ever did 
was stamped with the all-highest approval. 

The scene of Madame von Scholl's assault upon the 
proprieties was a hill near Havel lake, whither we had 
gone on the royal yacht Alexandra to spend the after- 
noon. It was broiling hot and as we crept toward the 
near-by forest, only an occasional word was spoken. 

The Kaiser looked as if he wished himself a hun- 
dred miles away, and the Empress was unhappy be- 
cause her lord seemed displeased. 

Suddenly there arose the cry : " Where is Madame 
von Scholl? Did we leave her on the steamer? " — No. 
Some one had seen her at the landing-place. 

While these questions went the rounds, we heard 
sharp whistling somewhere from above, and there, on 
the top of the sand-hill, stood madame, swinging her 
parasol, and turning as swiftly on one brown-stock- 
inged foot as her ponderous weight permitted. 

" The fat rascal ! " cried William, " she must have 
sneaked off the pier and ascended the mountain from 
the other side.'^ 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 183 

Then the Kaiser put his hands to his mouth and 
hallooed: " Stand still a second and give me a chance to 
fix my camera." 

But at that moment, the parasol and head and arms 
of the unhappy lady suddenly took a forward tumble, 
the rest of her body followed, and, twice overturning, 
she rolled down the incline like an avalanche streaked 
with brown tints and festooned with multicolored rib- 
bons. 

Did the " all-highest" and their excellencies and 
ladyships and colonelships and privy councilors and 
learned men and common every-day noblemen laugh? 

Oh, no! They just roared and bellowed and shouted 
and held their sides and danced about, and some of us 
shed tears at the hilarious spectacle ; and when we had 
disentangled our portly friend, she started in to enjoy 
the situation herself and we had to commence all over 
again to keep her company. 

Still, as to downright indecencies, openly practiced, 
our court was hardly a patch on that of Dessau, which 
explains Wilhelm's frequent visits to the little Duchy, 
whose women enjoyed a well-earned reputation for 
gayety. 

At one time when my mistress learned of the Kaiser's 
projected visit to that Sodom, she set to work to pro- 
cure an invitation for herself. This was easily arranged 
through the Princess Frederick Charles, sister of the 
Duke, but for quite a while his Majesty remained deaf 
to his wife's hints and even to direct requests to take 
her along. Finally, when Augusta Victoria asked him 
in the presence of his aunt, he had to yield, and the 
Kaiserin ordered a number of fine dresses. If the 
Dessau ladies were as handsome as her husband 
claimed, she meant to dazzle them, at least, by gor- 
geousness. 

Two days before the Imperial couple was to start, 
the Empress caught a slight cold, but nobody thought 
anything of it, though William remarked once or twice 



184 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

at table: "You had better look out, Dona, or maybe 
you cannot go." 

Her Majesty laughed at this, and there were most 
elaborate preparations: She was to have a special car, 
and everything was to be done on the grandest scale. 

Countess Brockdorff and myself had been ordered 
to accompany the Kaiserin, and early on the morning 
our trunks (two truck-loads for a two-days' visit) were 
carted away to the depot. 

At ten o'clock we all partook of a hurried second 
breakfast in travelling dress, and that over, her Ex- 
cellency received orders to drive ahead to the station, 
to inspect for the last time the apartment on the train, 
while I went to fetch the children who were to say good- 
bye. Returning with the pretty youngsters, I found 
my mistress ready, when Dr. Leuthold, the Kaiser's 
physician-general, entered. 

" If it pleases your Majesty," he said, " let me see 
your tongue. I will also have to examine your jugular 
glands once more." 

" Nonsense," said the Empress, but at the same time 
raised her veil and stuck out her tongue. After a mo- 
mentary examination, the physician pulled a long face. 

" Thank God," he said, " it is not yet too late." 

" No, but it will be, if you do not hurry," interrupted 
the Crown Prince. " Papa will be here presently." 

Dr. Leuthold took no notice of the child's joke. " I 
perceive indications of an inflamed throat that may 
bring on most serious complications," he resumed, 
gravely. " Your Majesty must go to bed at once, and 
must not leave the house for three days. In this way 
the worst may be forestalled." 

" Then I am not going to Dessau.'^ " gasped Augusta 
Victoria. 

" I cannot permit it," answered Leuthold. 

The Empress dropped into an arm chair and began 
to cry. 

"Is my wife ready .^ " demanded the Kaiser's voice 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 185 

outside. I advanced toward him. " Has Leuthold 
given an adverse decision.'* " he asked, before I had 
time to explain. His valet entered simultaneously to 
announce that the carriage was waiting. 

" I am sorry," said the Emperor, stepping up to the 
Kaiserin and kissing her hand, " but you know one 
cannot be too careful of one's throat." Then he bade 
h^r and the children good-bye, and, turning once more 
at the door, cried : " I will send back your Brockdorff. 
She shall keep you company." 

" It was all a deep-laid plot, a conspiracy," said her 
Excellency, afterward. " When I arrived at the train, 
the Kaiser's attendants exchanged side glances which 
convinced me that something was up, and when he came 
and told me to return home, I discovered that our 
trunks were already on the wagons bound for the 
Schloss. That shows they had never been freighted." 

I remarked I did not believe William capable of such 
trickery. 

" Bah ! " growled the Countess, " you may take my 
word for it, the Kaiser diS not want us in Dessau." 

" Not us, perhaps, but his own wife " 

The old Excellency shrugged her shoulders. 

"And Leuthold.?" 

" Is a man, and in such affairs men stick to each 
other like glue. This amiable physician-general was 
given to understand that the Kaiser intended the trip 
for a stag party. Hence the examination at the hour 
of leaving, the awe-inspiring prophecies, and the dis- 
heartening verdict." 

The Dessau incident happened previous to the great 
holocaust of favorites alluded to, and at a time when 
my mistress was almost continuously in a sore state of 
agitation lest she should lose her husband's love. Some- 
times she chased after him for days, following his Rest- 
lessness to Berlin, or_to various hunting-boxes in the 
neighborhood, and we ladies had to be prepared to 
spend the nights on the cars, or in the half-finished 



186 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

chambers of palaces wet with paint and smelling of 
work-people. 

When the Empress said : " I will give audiences in 
Berlin tomorrow," it probably meant that she had' 
learned of his Majesty's resolve to leave her for a 
while and enjoy himself after his own fashion. But 
the reception accorded to our mistress, after we had 
caught up with the imperial runaway, was often far 
from pleasant. When surprised in Berlin, the Emperor 
sometimes bolted as early as four or five o'clock in the 
morning to go on some impromptu hunting expedition, 
hasty preparations for which had been made overnight. 

Augusta Victoria would then receive a few notables 
at ten in the forenoon, returning to Potsdam for 
lunch, and, perhaps, take another train for Berlin in 
the evening. 

Once the Kaiser vamosed from Hubertusstock, 
whither we had followed him unbidden. Going out 
hunting with his gentlemen at early morn, he sent, at 
supper-time, when her Majesty was expecting him, a 
dispatch saying that business of state had called him 
to the capital. 

All this plotting and counterplotting, the outcome of 
jealousy, was ridiculous, wearisome, exhausting — ^but 
tame. 

More interesting became the matter when a royal 
woman happened to be in the race, Letitia Bonaparte, 
Duchess of Aosta, the daughter of the late Plon-Plon, 
and her father's true child, for instance. 

Poor Augusta Victoria ! if she could have anticipated 
the sorry consequences of her good-natured decision to 
lodge the former King of Spain and his blooming young 
wife in the Princess' chambers when they came to 
Berlin ! 

The Princess' chambers are on the same floors and 
in the same wing of the Schloss as their Majesties' 
own private rooms. The occupants of both apartments 
a.re therefore much thrown together, — in fact, they can- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 187 

not help being in each other's company at all times of 
the day. 

William had so impressed his wife with the impera- 
tiveness of strengthening his relations with the then 
King of Italy, Umberta, that Augusta Victoria could 
scarcely do enough for her new friends. So she gave 
them the apartment reserved for the most intimate rela- 
tives, one which even Prince Henry, the Kaiser's 
brother, had never been allowed to occupy. 

(Li the early weeks of December, 1918, Rosa Lux- 
emburg, the Anarchist, occupied the same apartments, 
while Liebknecht lived across the way, in the Kaiser's 
own suite of rooms.) 

At the time of this royal visit, the Duchess of Aosta 
was twenty-two years old. Her Majesty was thirty- 
one, the Duke forty-four, and the Kaiser thirty years ; 
— these figures tell the story. Letitia would not have 
been the daughter of Plon-Plon — had she not preferred 
the imperial blonde of thirty to her swarthy husband, 
twice her age. And under the influence of his young 
guest, William remembered all of a sudden that his wife 
was older than himself. 

I am writing of things I have seen, and conjectures 
are odious where a woman is concerned; but to com- 
plete my story it is necessary to say that the Duke 
and Duchess left our court abruptly, ten hours before 
the stipulated time, and that the Duchess never ob- 
tained another invitation to our court. 

True, she visited Berlin once more, but she travelled 
incognito then, which was the best thing she could do, 
considering that Augusta Victoria had refused to re- 
ceive her. Besides, she came as a petitioner. The 
Kaiser was to intervene on her behalf with King Um- 
berto, who had cut off her allowance and had refused' 
to invite her to his silver wedding. 

Letitia and William met. " Madonna, your every 
wish is a command," and forthwith a cipher dispatch to 
the King of Italy, couched in the most amiable terras. 



188 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

issued from the German foreign office. It is furtKe 
claimed that they agreed to meet two weeks hence, i 
Rome; but the same day the Empress got wind of the 
arrangement by one of those infernal anonymous let-i 
ters. 

So Umberto refused and ordered his Berlin Ambas- 
sador to conduct the Aosta to St. Moritz. That closed 
the romance of William and Letitia. 

Among many other court functions I especially re- 
call, the " all-highest " revel in the hunting-lodge Grunei 
wald, which led to the succession of horrible anonymous 
letters. It took place in the early winter, when my mis- 
tress, who had given life to Princess Victoria Louise in 
the middle of September, was not yet able to ride to 
the chase. 

In vain had Augusta Victoria pleaded postponement 
until she were stronger and able to attend ; " all the in 
vitations were issued ;" " Count Philli could not come at 
a later time, his duties not permitting him to leave 
Vienna after the date fixed ; " besides, later on, he, 
the Kaiser, " had to prepare for the formal opening 
of the Reichstag," etc. 

I had been one of the red-coats .at the annual 'Hub- 
ertus hunt and my report had pleased my mistress. 
The Countess Hohenau had been there, but rode her 
horse womanfashion, and returned, like the other ladies, 
to Potsdam shortly after the boar was brought down. 

" You are sure she did not go back to the chalet, to 
participate in the dinner, by another route? " inquired 
her Majesty. 

" I ordered my coachman to keep behind her Lady- 
ship's carriage, and, though she drove furiously, the 
command was strictly followed. I saw the Countess' 
phaeton turn into the courtyard of her villa, and up 
to ten minutes ago, she did not leave the house. I put 
a man on watch there now, according to your Majesty's 
orders." 

My mistress had grown very red in the face. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 189 

" I see your zeal has led you too far," she said, 

coldly ; " but as your friend, Madame von N , lives 

near the Hohenaus, drive to her on some pretext and 
call off your spy." 

At the Hubertus dinner two hundred and twenty-five 
covers were laid; the company at the lodge two weeks 
later was much more limited, — five or six ladies and 
some twenty gentlemen, — among them the Duke of 
Schleswig, Prince George Radziwill, the Eulenburgs, 
Philip and Augustus ; Generals von Hahncke, von Pies- 
sen, and von Scholl, Adjutant von Hbelsen, and the 
Masters of Ceremony, Herr von Kotze and Baron 
Schrader. 

Our rubicund friend, Madame von Scholl, did the 
honors. There were, besides her and Countess Fritz, 
several friends of Duke Gunther, who had not been 
met in society before. All I know about them is that 
they responded to the names of French marquises and 
wore an astonishing number of lace petticoats. 

" Philli never sang better, and Huelsen fairly outdid 
himself in his capacity as court jester; those French 
dames, too, danced eiichantingly on a marble-topped 
table," said one of the guests ; " but the Kaiser, though 
applauding his friends' efforts, seemed absent-minded. 
During the whole of the evening he sat at the side of 
Countess Fritz, who was arrayed in a coquettish demi- 
toilet of white and purple velvet. One of her superb 
arms leaned upon the Kaiser's fauteuil, and he fon- 
dled her hands." 

Toward midnight, Kotze, good-natured fool that he 
is (if it meant death to him he would still be the best 
person in the world to intrust with a commission con- 
cerning the King's pleasure), Kotze, I said, proposed 
that all go spook-hunting. 

" Mon Dieu ! " cried the French women, " is there 
a White Lady about this castle, too ? " 

And then Duke Gunther told the story of the beauti- 
ful cannon-founder's wife, whom Margrave Joachim's 



190 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

princess caused to be immured on the staircase leading 
from her husband's room in the first story to the cellar. 

The cruel deed is said to have occurred about 1545, 
and the walled-up entrance to the staircase can still 
be seen. There are even many who think they can hear 
the poor, starved wench moaning in her centuries-old 
burial-place. 

To investigate this, Kotze proposed that we adjourn 
to the Joachim wing. We did so with many affectations 
of chicken-heartedness, and when we returned and 
counted noses, there were two missing. 

As it turned out, the Kaiser had a sleigh ready all 
evening, the horses being changed hourly, and as soon 
as the company left the parlors, the Kaiser and Coun- 
tess Fritz jumped in, and, outriders with torches having 
been sent ahead, drove to Potsdam, Charlotte handling 
the ribbons. 

Grand-master Eulenburg was, of course, supposed to 
know nothing of this, but, being responsible for the 
Kaiser's person, he had arranged for a second sleigh, 
with the fastest team from the imperial stables, to fol- 
low the other at a moment's notice. Its occupants, an 
expert driver and a valet, were to keep behind the 
Kaiser without making their presence known. 

When we learned of these precautionary measures, 
a load came off our minds, and particularly the news 
that her Ladyship was driving gave us relief, for every- 
body remembered the many narrow escapes Wilhelm 
has had when acting as his own coachman. 

Toward five o'clock in the morning the driver and 
valet returned, announcing that " Majesty was safe." 

And further this witness sayeth not, but next day, at 
noon, when the valet brought Augusta Victoria's mail, 
I noticed among the letters an envelope without initials 
or seal. This was most unusual. Ordinarily, letters 
of royalty, and of friends only, were submitted to my 
mistress in person, Baron von Mirbach, the same who 



SECRET LIFE OF THE ItAlEER 191 

was murdered in Moscow in 1918, taking care of all 
others, as the majority weye merely petitions. 

Examining the envelope still closer, I saw that the 
ceremonious address was written in Latin letters and in 
imitation of print. However, despite my misgivings, 
I had to lay the missive before the Empress. 

I put the mail on a silver tray and ordered the foot- 
man to carry it into the library, where I preceded him 
to hand the letters to her Majesty, who was sitting 
at her wrii4ng-table. By a strange coincidence, the 
Kaiserin espied the queer envelope at once; while I was 
giving her the letters with such remarks as " from 
her Majesty, Queen Victoria;" "from her Highness, 
the Duchess of Glucksburg;" "from Princess Feo;" 
" from " Augusta Victoria interrupted me. 

" What is in that queer envelope, — the last of the 
lot.f^" she inquired. 

" I do not know. Some official business, I suppose, 
sent up by mistake.'' 

" Give it to me, Baroness." 

And with that impulsiveness that sometimes urges 
us on to hasten to our doom, her Majesty tore open 
the cover. 

I am no prude, but the picture that dropped from 
the envelope was so grossly indecent I hesitate to even 
hint at the subject. I'll only say that there were two 
figures, scantily draped in fur robes, — that of the fe- 
male, bearing on her shoulders the photographed head 
of Countess Hohenau, and that of the man exhibiting 
William's features. 

The Kaiserin scanned the caricature with a horrified 
expression; then, bewildered, disgusted, helpless, stared 
at me. I tried to take the picture and letter away from 
her. 

" Let me throw these things into the fire," I pleaded. 
Instead of answering, her Majesty ordered Countess 
BrockdorfF to be sent for. " I must see her Excellency 



192 SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 

at once. I am at home to no one. The Princess mt 
not come in." 

Returning, Augusta Victoria drew me down upon the 
sofa next to her. " Read me that letter," she said, 
" my eyes hurt," She was crying. 

" Loloki and Lotka on a moonlight night," began 
the epistle, which purported to tell the incidents of 
the night at Grunewald and of William's (Loloki's) 
sleigh-ride with Charlotte (Lotka), Countess Hohenau. 
* * * * After reading aloud the first two lines, I re- 
fused to proceed, and as to my relief. Countess Brock- 
dorfF entered just then, I handed the rag to her, but 
unprepared as her Excellency was, the introduction up- 
set her. " I beg to be ex " 

"No excuses, please," said her Majesty; "you will 
read this letter to the end. I must have it, — ^word for 
word." 

A stubborn mien had overspread the Kaiserin's face, 
Theresa Brockdorff saw that it would be useless to tem- 
porize. She did as she was told. Shades of Queen 
Bess and DuBarry, of the Duchess of Orleans and Lola 
Montez ! 

It was a dreadful ordeal, this reading of anonymous 
letter number one ; and as we were in the midst of it the 
door opened and in walked -Wilhelm, deadly pale, hold- 
ing in his hand an envelope of the same size and simil- 
arly inscribed as the one that brought her Majesty's 
letter. 

Countess BrockdoriF and myself rose to withdraw, 
but the Kaiser stopped us. 

" Stay," he shouted, " my wife may need you after 
I have shown her this," and he threw the envelope on 
the table. Our mistress gave it a frightened look. 

" The same as my own ! " she gasped. You may 
imagine the explanations that followed: William's rav- 
ings, his vows of vengeance, Augusta Victoria's hys- 
terics, her tears and noble declamations of unshakable 
trust in her beloved husband's fidelity. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 193 

" And the best of it was," said the Kaiser's sister, 
the Princess of Meiningen, after things had settled 
down a bit, " my big brother totally escaped censure 
for his escapade. In the act of whitewashing hira of 
the terrible accusations, launched forth in the Billings- 
gate of the mess-room, the facts underlying the whole 
business were lost sight of." 

So entirely were they forgotten that, indeed, the 
relations between the Emperor and Countess Hohenau 
and his other favorites continued undisturbed for the 
next two years. 

During all that time a thousand and more letters of 
the character described were delivered at the homes of 
Berlin and Potsdam uppertendom ; from Kaiser to club- 
man, from the first lady in the land to the last of 
court society women, nobody, who was anybody, was 
spared. 

The letters came through the ordinary mail, at all 
hours of the day and evening, postmarked now from 
this, now from that quarter of the capital or town, 
and always announcing their damnable character by 
the letter style adopted. The carrier that brought them, 
the lackey or maid receiving them from his hands, 
recognized the Cain's brand as readily as the quick- 
witted soubrette taking the note to her trembling mis- 
tress, or the major-domo, the chamberlain, or lady-in- 
waiting performing that disagreeable duty. 

The only handsome woman the anonymous letters did 
not frighten from court was the Countess Sophie 
Schiltz de Gortz, a beautiful South American, born 
on an estate near Paris while her father was on a dip- 
lomatic mission in Europe. 

I have already recorded the Kaiser's opinion of her 
Ladyship: " So beautiful a woman can hardly be ex- 
pected to have sense too." During her annual visits 
at court, he treated her with cold courtesy, and was 
so little inclined to grant her a friend's privileges, that 
on one occasion she was forbidden the royal table for 



194 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

three days — that is, until her court dresses, lost in a 
railroad smash-up, had been replaced. Despite the 
Empress's entreaties, the Kaiser would not hear of 
the least deviation from etiquette in favor of the un- 
lucky dame. 

Among the ever recurring themes discussed in the 
numerous rags was the Kaiser's meanness. He was told 
over and over again that, while fifty years ago, Karl 
of Prussia was known as Thaler-Prinz, the Kaiser 
would be remembered as "Mark — (25 cents) Prince." 

Those stories of a king's ransom that " he ties in 
diamonds, round his mistress's white neck " are in- 
ventions, and not particularly original ones, either. 
Though indulging in the greatest extravagances where 
his own self is concerned, the egotism that rules his 
every act probably persuades him that his friends ought 
to consider the honor of the attention of an Imperial 
Majesty as an offset against disappointments of a 
financial nature. 

Speaking of diamonds, the Duke of Schleswig showed 
me a specimen bracelet of the sort the Emperor occas- 
ionally gives to a friend. A pretty Potsdam girl had 
lent it to him in a burst of confidence. It was a gold 
snake bracelet, elaborately chased, with eyes of sap- 
phires, and six or seven circles. 

** Not worth much, but of good workmanship," said 
the Prince. " See, it can be drawn out and spread from 
wrist to elbow, or over the upper part of the arm." 

As the average great man is rather a nincompoop 
in his valet's eyes, so the mighty Kaiser appeared a 
wee small potato to those of his subjects who saw much 
of him, that is, those permitted to penetrate the mask 
of imperial pretense, limitless conceit and lying subter- 
fuge he habitually wore. 

The Princess of Meiningen hit the nail on the head 
when she pronounced her " big brother " a " great char- 
latan." 



CHAPTER XII 

I HAVE sometimes hinted that the imperial German 
court was " financially embarrassed." I will show that 
the Kaiser was both miserly in petty matters, and an 
uncontrollable spendthrift. He was " penny wise and 
pound foolish " ; he " robbed Peter to pay Paul " ; he 
was stingy with his friends and luxurious with himself. 
He was niggardly with his family and extravagant 
where his own wishes were concerned. 

I will show that at times he kept the court in down- 
right poverty ; his servants in actual want ; and his 
own family " scrimped." 

His was a strange mixture of personalities, indeed — 
the little man whose ambition and greed led him to at- 
tempt to conquer the world. 

"But how is it possible .f^" asks the reader whose 
" Statesman's Year-Book " tells him that the Kaiser 
has an income of about four million dollars per year, 
and who remembers, perchance, William's boastful 
speech in which he said he was the biggest landowner 
in Germany. 

Whether the latter assertion is true I cannot say, 
but those four millions were a shining reality and un- 
encumbered, save for the obligation to pay five appan- 
ages of fifteen thousand dollars each per annum to 
Prussian Princes. That left William about three mil- 
lion nine hundred thousand dollars a year to " bless 
himself with," besides his private income of fifty thou- 
sand dollars per month. 

The $50,000 formed the nucleus of his Majesty's 
private purse, and were always spoken for three months 
in advance for his uniform and toilet accounts, his pri- 
vate journeys and amusements. 

The civil list discharged the cost of representation, 

195 



196 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

the needs of the Kaiserin and the children, all the ex- 
penses of the household and provided funds for the 
maintenance of the royal theaters, palaces and gardens. 

Out of a much smaller official income William I saved 
an immense fortune, though he kept up a separate court 
for his Queen for thirty years, and, for a Prussian, was 
exceedingly liberal toward ladies that engaged his 
fancy. 

The present Kaiser actually wound up year after 
year with a tremendous deficit, and his court, outwardly 
splendid and richly endowed, was more penurious than 
that of the meanest prince of the Empire. 

Indeed, my maid assured me that at Buckeburg, 
where the monarch received only as many marks as 
the president of the United States gets dollars per year, 
the grooms were better fed and lodged than under- 
stewards in Potsdam. 

The reason for this is obvious enough : the Kaiser has 
no conception whatever of the value of money, and 
ordered for himself anything that pleased him, what 
he saw and read about, without paying the least heed 
to the pecuniary consequences. If he desired an article, 
it must be procured in the quickest possible manner. 

With the Empress, things were much the same, 
though she did sometimes listen to reason when the 
court or house marshals pleaded povety on account of 
imperial raids on their treasuries. 

The entire civil list was kept at the disposal of these 
two august personages, and all the members of the royal 
household, as well as purveyors, servants, laborers and 
scrubwomen, suffered in consequence — a state of affairs 
that led to constant friction among the court officials, 
enforced a most niggardly and disgraceful general regi- 
men, and discredited the Kaiser's name with merchants 
and everybody else having business with the court. 

I had noticed for some time that a certain dealer in 
flowers, Unter den Linden, served me with excessive 
zeal, though my purchases were not extensive by any 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 19^ 

means. My carriage no sooner stopped at his door, 
when this man rushed out bowing and scraping, and 
adding to my titles some I never dared hope to acquire. 
I also observed that he charged me less than the prices 
marked. So one day I asked him why : " Your Lady- 
ship belongs to the court." 

^ " But," I said, " others do, and I have seen the car- 
riage of the Countess von B halt a considerable 

time in front of your store before one of the employes 
came to ask her pleasure." 

" Well," said the florist, " you belong to the court 
and pay cash. For that reason I would rather sell you 
a three-mark bouquet than a fifty-mark flower-piece to 
the lady you mention or (and he lowered his voice) to 
even the Emperor or Empress. 

" I am a well-to-do man, thank the Lord ; but when 
it comes to waiting a year and a half before one's bills 
are paid by the royal treasury, I feel like cursing my 
appointment. And the worst of it is, the all-highest 
example is followed by almost everybody connected with 
the court." 

But nothing illustrates the unsettled state of the 
royal finances more thoroughly than the fact that the 
Kaiserin had no certain income of her own. Her court 
marshal was obliged to fight for every dollar required 
beyond the ordinary pay of servants and help with the 
Kaiser's court and house marshals, who often refused 
to grant necessary funds until Augusta Victoria's ex- 
press commands compelled them to honor the disputed 
bills. 

A rather amusing incident of that sort happened a 
few months after the enthronization, when my mistress 
* ordered me to buy a little bed, together with the neces- 
sary clothes, for Prince Oscar (born July 27 that 
year). It was my good fortune to find at Mosse 
Brothers, Jaeger Strasse, the exact article her Majesty 
wanted, and when the bed was sent up she was greatly 
pleased. 



198 SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 

" We will keep it right here," she said, " and, that 
there may be no misunderstanding, take the bill and 
order it paid immediately." 

" And sin'^e when are ladies of the court authorized 
to make purchases without previous estimate by this 
office? " asked the Baron, after listening to my request. 

" I don't know," I answered, " and, besides, I have 
not come here to answer riddles." 

" Then," said the house marshal icily, " accept my 
compliments, together with the information that this 
bill is irregular, extravagant and unnecessary ; hence it 
will not be paid. The baby <ian sleep in his cradle six 
months longer; by that time we shall be able to buy 
him a bed in the regular way." 

" Then it is your pleasure that the little Prince be 
taken out of the new bed and put back into the cradle ? " 

" It will do him no harm, and give me much satis- 
faction." 

Of course, I reported the case to my mistress, word 
for word, and such a hubbub as ensued you would deem 
impossible in the " highest " walks of life. At first, the 
Kaiserin intended personally to give the Baron a piece 
of her mind, but that plan was discarded as doing too 
much honor to the official; then the grandmistress. 
Countess Brockdorif, was ordered to write him a letter, 
demanding payment of the bill, and upon his reiterated 
refusal the information was sprung upon him that he 
had been making war upon the Empress herself, instead 
of her ladies, as he thought. 

Of course, that altered the case. Baron Lyncker's 
drawer was all at once alive with crisp blue bills, and 
there was no higher pleasure for him in the wide, wide 
world than to discharge obligations /or the " all-highest 
children." As to his remarks that the cradle was good 
enough for the baby, they were mere pleasantries, and 
he was " amazed that I had taken them for anything 
else," etc. 

This matter of finance and business is clearly a de- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 199 

ficiency in William's mental makeup; as some people 
lack the sense of locality, so the Emperor happens to 
be destitute of a proper comprehension of values. 

Units or tens, three, seven or eight naughts: — 
William saw no distinction between them. Prince Stol- 
berg tried to make him understand " that the Reichstag 
people deal with millions, while we at court must be 
content with using tens and hundreds of thousands, if 
it comes high," but it was a mere waste of breath. 

Maybe that explains, in part, at least, the Kaiser's 
callousness in the matter of German casualties during 
the Great War. When Ludendorff explained to him 
that his projected July offensive would cost a million 
German lives at the very least, William said : " Go 
ahead," with no more emotion than he might display 
when he ordered his bath. 

And this recalls an experience had by a relative of 
the editor of these memoirs. When Napoleon arrived 
at Dresden after the retreat from Moscow, Mr. Fisher's 
grandfather, the Comte de Simeon, prime minister of 
Jerome Napoleon, went to the capital of Saxony to 
confer with the great Emperor. 

As de Simeon entered Napoleon's room, the Emperor 
grabbed him by the coat and said: 

" Off with you to Paris. I want 325,000 men within 
the next six weeks. You arrange that." 

De Simeon tried to protest : " But your Majesty has 
just lost a million men." 

" A million men — this for your million men," cried 
NapoleoQ, and, snapping his fingers, he pushed de 
Simeon out of the door bidding him not to lose a 
moment. 

Every courtier not a dyed-in-the-wool Prussian sym- 
pathized with our servants, whose lives, though spent 
in a palace, were harder in many respects than those 
of the general run of people in their class. In their 
gorgeous liveries and tidy house dresses they looked 
Buave and contented enough, but their lot was not as 



SOO SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

happy as their serene faces indicated, neither did their 
wages correspond with their silver-edged clothes of fine 
material. 

Off and on I heard of cases of poverty, even of 
destitution, in their families, for which they dared not 
ask for relief in the most likely place, of their master 
or mistress, who caused it to be known once and for 
all that they must not be annoyed with their servants' 
personal concerns. 

In the bountiful Christmas season, I thought surely, 
their Majesties will make up for it. Picture, then, my 
amazement when I heard the Kaiser say to her Majesty, 
at the beginning of Holy Week: "I have cautioned 
Miessner (a privy councilor, who administered the 
royal purse) to pay the custpmary ten marks ($2.50) 
only to those lackeys and maids who wait upon me 
personally. It will be well for you to instruct Baron 
von Mirbach similarly, or you will run the risk of feeing 
a whole tribe of men and girls who are merely second 
or third assistants." 

William's valets, I heard later on, received forty 
marks ($10) from their imperial master as Christmas 
gratuity; all his other attendants, men and women, 
had to be content with the customary ten marks " for 
gingerbread." 

" And that is the only drink money the Kaiser dis- 
penses all the year round," complained the wife of one 
of the wardrobemen, who did my plain sewing ; " outside 
of Christmas, he never seems to have a copper for his 
body-servants. Although himself continuously in want 
of stimulants (he often drinks four or five egg cognacs 
in the course of the day), it never strikes him that his 
overworked attendants might feel like stepping across 
the way to the canteen and * crook an arm.' " 

Occasionally beggars that accosted him on his rides, 
received three marks from the Kaiser, and a like sum 
was appropriated every Sunday for the benefit of the 
contribution plate; his adjutant handed him the coia 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 201 

before he stepped into his carriage going to church; 
beggars must report at the royal stables for their mite. 

Whether this tardy generosity is an evidence of hard- 
heartedness, as people in the royal service claim, or 
whether the Kaiser's unlimited egotism is to blame, I 
would not like to decide. Perhaps the Kaiser's inability 
properly to judge monetary values remains the prime 
factor. To emphasize this let me give one more 
anecdote. 

William, who is nothing if not a slave to tradition, 
revived a habit of several of his ancestors, namely, to 
stroll out of his palace gate as an ordinary mortal once 
a year, on holy night, when he donned a subdued civilian 
dress and when no adjutant or anyone of the body 
service was allowed to follow him — a general order that, 
however, did not applj^ to the secret police, which were 
made acquainted with the Kaiser's every outdoor move 
beforehand, and had its guardian angels about wher- 
ever and whenever he was in the open. 

The war-lord walked through the park behind the 
Neues Palais toward Sans Souci and often rambled be- 
yond the gates of the ancient chateau, wishing a 
" Merry Christmas ^' to and distributing small gold 
pieces among needy persons he came across. 

It was originally a novel amusement for the Kaiser 
and a fairly profitable one for the poor men and women 
who happened to attract his attention while his pockets 
were still lined; that is, while his charity fund of two 
hundred marks ($50) divided up into fourteen gold 
crowns and three double crowns, lasted. 

Courtiers and others near William used to rejoice in 
this solitary manifestation of royal good-will, that 
helped to re-cement the bonds between king and people. 

"Will it please your Majesty to go on your usual 
Santa Claus expedition this evening before the trees are 
lit ? " asked court marshal Count Eulenburg at second 
breakfast on the day preceding Christmas, 

" Most certainly," replied the Kaiser, " and, by the 



202 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

way, direct Miessner to furnish me with silver coi 
instead of gold, this time — fourteen thalers and three oil 
four five-mark pieces. You see," he added, addressing 
himself to the Empress, " I have been thinking about 
this giving away of gold ; some poor devil, whom I try 
to benefit, might arouse suspicion when he offers my 
Christmas present in payment. That element of dis- 
trust and danger I will circumvent by spending only 
thalers among my needy friends hereafter." 

" How thoughtful of you," lisped the Empress, de- 
vouring her husband with admiring glances. 

" Your Majesty thinks of everything," said the 
Countesses von Brockdorff and von Bassewitz. And 
" of everything, particularly his pocket," whispered my 
neighbor. 

When the Kaiser came to take leave of her Majesty 
that evening he drew from his overcoat pocket the 
shabby little amount he had decided to spend, fifty-seven 
marks in all. 

" The poor are in luck tonight," he said. " Miessner 
selected the brightest thalers in his treasury, they are 
really very pretty," and the Kaiser laughed as the 
hapless Princess Lamballe may have laughed as she 
exclaimed : 

" If the poor have no bread, let 'em eat cake." 

Maybe the practice of bringing up German princes 
in complete ignorance of money-matters was responsible. 

Royal parents seemed to think that to deprive their 
sons up to the day of their majority of a decent 
amount of pocket money was the surest and only way 
to keep their boys from becoming spendthrifts. 

In Prussia, the princely youth was allowed a few 
thalers ($2 to $2.50) per week, of which the minutest 
accounting was demanded, and which — and that is the 
worst feature — he may not even manage in person, that 
privilege being reserved for his governor. The prac- 
tice has worked havoc immeasurable with us, as well as 
with others. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER^%203 

True, young Hohenzollerns are not liable to be 
flogged nowadays for spending a few coppers unneces- 
sarily, as Crown Prince Frederick (known as Frederick 
the Great) was when he gave a royal servant fifteen 
cents for bringing his dog from Potsdam to Wuster- 
hausen, a distance of twenty miles (his father beat him 
" for having no more sense than to pay a man who 
merely did his damned duty ") ; but even Wilhelm's 
parents insisted upon bringing up their heir to the 
throne without giving him a chance to acquaint himself 
with the power, the temptation, the misery and the joy 
that the possession of ready money gives. 

As the holes in the Greek philosopher's toga denoted 
vanity rather than contempt of worldly opinion, so the 
patches on a youthful Hohenzollern's trousers indicate 
not Spartan frugality, but a false notion of the prin- 
ciples of economics. 

The Kaiser's sons were not taught that it was neces- 
sary to economize in order to be liberal; they were 
merely deprived of things they liked — good clothes and 
cash — in obedience to a hoary delusion that has peopled 
the thrones of Europe with spendthrifts or niggards for 
centuries. 

I have heard the former Court Marshal von Liebenau 
say that William, when at college, never had a copper 
over and above his expenses, all of which were disbursed 
by him, Liebenau. 

" When he entered active service, that old bane — 
penury — ^hovered over the lieutenant, captain and 
colonel; his entire income was made over to me every 
month, and as it was always spoken for in advance, 
my young master even aspired in vain for a pocket- 
piece, a double gold crown" ($5). 

Wilhelm, having been unable to acquire intimate ac- 
quaintance with money, almost showed a childish atti- 
tude toward financial questions, and, having all his own 
wants attended to as a matter of course, failed to 
understand or appreciate what was due to others. 



204< SECRET LIFE OP THE KAISER 

And what was sauce for the Prussian gander was 
gravy for the Bavarian goose as well. The reader will 
recollect some of the vagaries of Louis of Bavaria, 
whose wild extravagance and contempt for the science 
of addition and subtraction led to his committing 
murder and suicide. When Louis was sixteen, his 
mother wrote to Queen Augusta : " I am in despair and 
hardly know where to turn. I cannot conscientiously 
oppose the King's methods, still it is hard to see my 
children suffer under a system that robs them of all the 
little joys of life. The King will not allow our boys 
to have more than eight groschens (fifteen cents) pocket 
money per week — ridiculous amount. 

" Yesterday I learned that Ludwig had contracted 
with a dentist to have two of his sound molar teeth 
pulled, for which the boy was to get twenty florins. 
The Prince had given a fictitious name, and the dentist 
heard only by the merest accident, and at the last 
moment, whom he had before him. Of course he quailed 
on learning the truth, and very properly informed our 
court marshal, who in turn acquainted me with the 
facts. I forbade him to mention the matter to his 
Majesty," the Queen went on, " but I am afraid it will 
penetrate to the all-highest ears by and by, and then 
the Prince's allowance may be cut off altogether." 

" Has anybody heard of the projected English tour 
of the Meiningens .? " asked the Kaiser at luncheon one 
afternoon. 

Von Egloffstein had heard the Hereditary Prince say 
that he and the Princess intended to accept an invita- 
tion to Windsor Castle. 

" But the cost ! " exclaimed the Kaiser ; " it will be 
at least ten marks ($2.50) a head every day they are 
absent." 

The very next day, at second breakfast, the Kaiser's 
menu card, on which he had sketched " the future south 
front of the castle with the surrounding territory," was 
handed around. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 205 

** I am glad to announce," he said, " that I have per- 
fected my plans for the improvement of the Schloss, 
After abolishing the popular amusement of looking into 
the Kaiser's windows," he referred to the dismantling of 
the houses opposite the royal residence, the Schloss 
Freiheit — " after routing the sweet plebs across the 
way, I have decided to erect another barrier between 
myself and publicity. As the sketch shows, terraces 
will be built adjoining the south front of our palace, 
and they will extend far enough to place within the 
royal precinct that part of the castle square that lies 
between the Schloss and the great fountain. These 
terraces," added the Kaiser, " will at the same time 
serve to deaden some of the noise from the incessant 
traffic." 

"Will the city be willing to sacrifice the space?" 
asked the Prince of Saxe-Altenburg, who was the guest 
of honor that day. 

" With my permission, certainly," replied the Kaiser. 

" But the scheme, if pushed to such length, will in- 
volve an outlay of twenty millions," warned the minister 
of the royal house, Wedell. 

" Maybe, more or less." The Kaiser said it with a 
frown, but immediately resumed his semi-bantering tone, 
and added lightly : " Perhaps I will authorize your 
Excellency to arrange another lottery, or to take up 
a loan that holds out large premiums, as they do in 
Austria and Serbia." 

With that he turned to the Countess Brockdorff, 
whom he detests and ordinarily treats with the severest 
indifference, and, by way of changing the subject, told 
her a risque story across the table. 

That is the Kaiser all over; it worries him to think 
that any of his relatives should spend ten marks, and 
he disposes of ten or twenty millions of public moneys 
as if they were old bricks or oyster shells ; in fact, the 
Kaiser has no notion whatever of the value of things. 

Among the many strange facts in these revelations, 



206 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

William*s remark concerning the Meiningens' trip to 
England is certainly not the least astonishing, coming 
from a man who is almost continuously on the road — 
the heir and heiress to a Duchy, paying a visit of state 
at Windsor Castle, covering their combined expenses 
with a paltry five dollars a day ! 

The surmisal is too ridiculous to require analysis ; but 
it might be just as well to state here that the Prince 
of Meiningen was a very rich man, while his wife was 
certainly the best-dressed woman at court. Besides, on 
their travels, the princely pair were always attended by 
a suite of some twenty people, all of whom, the Kaiser 
thought, could be provided with transportation and 
incidentals for ten marks per day ! 

The cold, precise truth is that the man striving for 
absolute power in Germany and in the rest of the world, 
was as deficient of business capacity as of the love of 
truth, of decency and humanity. Before and during 
the war, he promised the revenue of the great Indian 
Princes to all and sundry who subscribed a million 
and more for war loans. And when that failed to 
draw money to his coffers, he granted subscribers count- 
ships and principalities to be formed in Australian 
territories. 

We now return to that imperial twenty-million 
project launched with so much self-satisfied compla- 
cency" " between soup and fish." William brought for- 
ward fresh arguments in favor of his grand scheme. 

The municipal council could not offer any objection 
to his plans, " no matter what the cost," for he means 
to give the terraces over to his sons as a playground. 
Besides the terraces would offer a formidable bulwark 
against the plans of anarchists morning, noon and 
night. 

And as a final trump : " We will promise to prolong 
the annual stay of the court iii Berlin at least one 
month or six weeks " — arguments worthy of the royal 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 207 

imposter, who raised the mineself-und-Gott piffle to the 
dignity of a cult. 

Give up one-half of a public square — the most im- 
posing in town — as a playground for his half-dozen 
" kids," some half-witted, like Oscar, others with 
criminal tendencies like Eitel Fritz ; again, others mere 
clown-princely trash. 

" Bulwark against anarchists ! " Well, the ex-Kaiser 
should gaze upon his castle now! And he would pro- 
long his stay for twenty millions and a public square. 
He would indeed until his bones dropped from the gibbet 
erected by his loving subjects! 

" The greatest fools are also the greatest charle- 
tans and liars," laughingly remarked Prince Bismarck 
to Duke John Albrecht when he related the facts to 
him. 

All through the public and private life of the Kaiser 
confusion in matters of finance prevailed. For instance, 
there were no appropriations for the different sections 
of the household which were not subject to drafts by 
the imperial master. " The Kaiser would as lief gobble 
up our servants' pension or salary appropriations 
as " 

" As the Guelph Fund ? " interrupted Duke Gunther. 

" Your Highness is pleased to jest," replied the 
Count. " Forty-eight millions ! No one could spend 
such an amount." 

" Oh, yes, my brother-in-law could," laughed the 
Duke. 

The Guelph Fund represented the sequestrated for- 
tune of King George of Hanover, and his heir, the Duke 
of Cumberland, and its history is interesting. After 
annexing Hanover in the summer of 1866, Prussia re- 
stored their private fortune to the deposed Guelphs by 
the convention of September 29, 1867, but there was a 
string, or rather a steel cable, attached to this apparent 
act of restitution. Pointing out that the poor blind man 



208 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

whom he had vanquished might utilize his money to raise 
an army against victorious Prussia, Bismarck, with the 
consent of the Diet, seized the private property of the 
royal Hanoverians a second time, pleading that its 
annual interest was needed to ward off the Guelph 
party's secret intrigues. 

So the Guelph Fund became the Reptile Fund — a 
golden trough out of which William's friends and the 
government's leading men, fed for twenty-six years, 
there being no public accounting, the Chancellor laying 
a list of disbursements before the Kaiser at the end of 
each year, whereupon the receipts were destroyed. 

Court gossip fixes upon the Kaiser's unwillingness to 
give up so large a fortune to which he might have re- 
course occasionally as the principal cause of his fre- 
quent breaches of failh, but I have never succeeded in 
tracing even a solitary Guelph Fund million on its way 
to the Kaiser's pockets. 

The Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward), it 
was whispered, had written a letter to the late King 
George of Greece, telling him that the Kaiser " gulped " 
down the whole of the Guelph Fund, but " Uncle 
Bertie," instead of sending his letter to Athens direct, 
forwarded it to Copenhagen for approval by his 
mother-in-law, and Queen Louise caused the conspiracy 
to leak out. But, in a burst of confidence, her Majesty 
showed the letter to Princess Valdemar, who had stirred 
up the imbroglio between Bismarck and Czar Alexander 
not so many years before. 

That Marie d'Orleans-Bourbon, on her part, was 
unable to constrain her triumph at the hope of seeing 
Germany's Kaiser humiliated, is, perhaps, not to be 
wondered at, for her Royal Highness detested William 
as heartily as she adored France. So, with true fem- 
inine acumen, she sat down and telegraphed the sweet 
morsel broadcast to all royal Wilhelm-haters, or princes 
that she considered sympathizers, and all wished the 
undertaking Godspeed — all except Cousin Ferdinand 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 209 

of Bulgaria. This queer individual, eager to oblige the 
Kaiser, betrayed the confidence reposed in him, hoping 
thereby to gain William's gratitude. 

Ferdinand had a rude awakening out of that pipe- 
dream, for only a few weeks later William called him 
names that figured largely in the correspondence of the 
late Marquis of Queensbury with a certain English 
poet-dramatist. And to Czar Nicky's face, too ! 

And you should have heard the Kaiser's estimate of 
Ferdi's true character a week or so before Bulgaria's 
caving in. " Dirty traitor," " Jew-bully," " murderer " 
and " crowned Shylock " were some of the milder epi- 
thets flying about. And the Kaiserin and her daughter 
Louise fully agreed that his Balkan Czarship was a 
" swine." 

At best, the Berlin court was a veritable hotbed of 
ill-natured gossip. In the morning one of the Kaiser's 
adjutants might have a good story to relate that, with- 
out involving a breach of faith, keyed a perplexing sit- 
uation, while letters from other courts, the tattle of 
princely visitors, correspondence of high aristocrats 
or statesmen, a ministerial crisis, a sudden lapse in the 
routine of royal employment as a visit postponed or a 
" headache to order," completed the chain of evidence 
that linked together of its own accord, as it were, and 
in the end revealed hidden springs of action and private 
views and motives of individuals affording a better 
analysis of the minds of historic personages than a 
whole library of ordinary contemporaneous accounts, 
written by outside spectators, who faithfully copied 
each other. 

Except for the details, here first revealed, the Guelph 
Fund story^ is ancient history, but is important as a 
precedent, since German statesmen thought it incumbent 
upon them to sequestrate the private fortune of a one- 
horse king in order that this ex-monarch might not 
use the money to stir up trouble against conquering 
Prussia. William has six stalwart sons, than whom 



210 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

no greater scamps, intriguers and wasters of human 
life walk Germany's soil, or any other. All six will 
have millions and a whole skin — all six enjoy health, 
liberty and complete freedom from conscience or 
scruples of any kind ; all six will have millions at their 
beck and call. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Not long before he crossed over into Holland, I heard 
the Kaiser say : " Wilson shall stand before the world 
as the champion liar of the age. That title shall 
adhere to him like the rankest sort of eczema." 

" Because," he explained, Wilson had lied shamefully 
when he suggested that " even one in Germany's sev- 
enty millions of people " would be base enough to wish 
for the downfall of the Hohenzollerns. 

" Nero wished the Roman people had but one head, 
that he might cut it off," he continued; " so I wish the 
German people had only one head to declare with one 
voice : The Kaiser and his loyal people forever and ever, 
hooray ! " ^ 

Yet when Wilhelm hid behind Wilhelmina's petti- 
coats, no German made a serious attempt to persuade 
him to come home, to seek safety and refuge among 
" his own seventy millions." 

I hold no brief for the Russian court that was. 
Some of its grand dukes were as contemptuous of right 
and justice, of fair-play for " subjects " and of their 
own obligations to humanity as William, but the escape 
of the Dowager-Empress and ex-Grand Dukes Michael 
and Nicholas from the Bolshevist hell proves that Rus- 
sian royalty was not entirely bereft of friends. The 
three were kept prisoners for a year, the several mas- 
sacres taking place during that period stopped short 
at their cells — they were esteemed as human beings if 
not as princes and in due time were allowed to escape. 

If the Kaiser and Crown Prince had relied on their 
German friends to save them, their names certainly 
would appear in the necrological section of the Alma- 
nack de Gotha of 1919 ! 

2U 



212 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

I offer facts instead of explanations : 

During his long reign the Kaiser has never been 
guilty of a generous act lacking in theatrical possi- 
bilities, while his boasted concern for the working 
classes was generally recognized, as a sham. Witness 
his action of ordering the Konigsberg pioneers to 
make for him a number of improvements in Theerbude 
forest by building cottages and sheds around his hunt- 
ing lodge. The Reichstag called it " confounding mine 
and thine," and " malefeasance worthy of a satrap who 
recognizes no distinction between the state's and his own 
individual resources." 

Another picture: Noon at the Neues Palais. Forty 
hungry women and girls, some old, many young and 
comely, were hanging about the backstairs of what was 
intended for the most magnificent royal court of the 
day ! Most of them were munching black bread, scan- 
tily spread with lard, while from tin bottles they par- 
took of long draughts of cold chicory masquerading 
under the name of coffee. One or two proudly exhibited 
a hunk of salt pork, but many in the crowd depended 
entirely upon the charity of their colleagues or the "good 
nature of the liveried servants, which latter receive 
either full board, or eat at the canteen. 

And these women, wearing washed-out calico dresses 
all the year round and a twenty-four by forty-inch 
shawl barely covering their heads and breasts in winter, 
are imperial and royal employees, as well as the 
Kaiserin's natty maids and our chasseurs in gold and 
silver laden dress — the only difference being that the 
maids and flunkies are engaged by the year, while the 
women are employed by the month, i.e., during the resi- 
dence of the court of Potsdam. 

But what about the biblical crumbs that fall from 
the rich man's table? There were none. The allow- 
ance for the royal board was cut so fine as to just 
suffice for their Majesties, the entourage and the guests ; 
and when the Kaiser invited extra company at the last 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 213 

moment, the courses were hurried to cover up the 
shortening of rations, and frequently some of the visi- 
tors were " skipped " as if by accident. Of the royal 
guests, many left the flower-strewn table as hungry as 
the scrub-girls did their nooks and corners after the 
noon recess. 

The women hailed from Potsdam or the surrounding 
villages, and worked in the castle from 6 a.m. to 6 or 8 
P.M., many walking an hour or more to and from home. 
They were employed in the apartments of the adjutants 
of the ladies and gentlemen of the court, in the servants' 
quarters and in the kitchens, at cleaning and scrubbing, 
wood and water-carrying, etc., but our two-hundred- 
room palace afforded neither a place where they might 
cook a scanty meal or a room where they could eat 
and rest. Even hot water was denied them. 

" They get their wages,— what more do they want? " 
answered the house marshals, when we ladies pitied the 
unfortunates, and we had to subside for fear that those 
we tried to befriend might in consequence lose their 
livelihood — such as it was — under the protecting wing 
of the imperial eagle. 

" They have their wages " — sixty cents per day for 
twelve or fourteen hours' work, and even in the coldest 
^jnter — the court seldom removed to Berlin before 
Christmas — couldn't get a cup of coffee or a plate of 
soup from the crowned master, though it was self- 
evident that none of the women had time to go home 
for dinner recess. 

A person of my rank runs against this class of 
servants on rare occasions only ; but accident led me 
into the lower regions of the palace once in a while, and 
it gave me a shock every time to see these Pariahs of 
our splendid court fighting hunger and cold with food 
devoid of warmth, behind doors and staircases where 
the wind whistled the international anthem of poverty. 
After witnessing their distress and hearing their com- 
plaints once, I never went into the souterrain without 



214 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

issuing an order on the canteen for so and so many pea 
and lentil soups. The gratitude of these women was 
heart-rending. When I spoke of these unfortunates to 
the managing goldsticks, I was told " there is no money 
for extras." " Speak to my colleague of this or that 
branch — my cashdrawer is empty," or, " if I signed 
a voucher for a semi-charitable object, the Kaiser would 
have my administration impeached." 

Even when, the women having made me their advo- 
cate, I asked that they be paid weekly, as the law pro- 
vides, instead of three days after the first of the month 
as customary, this " boon " was denied on the plea that 
it would upset a practice of long standing, the noble 
practice of starving royal employees ! 

And this happened in Prussia, where every man, 
woman and child contributed on an average of twenty 
cents per year toward Wilhelm's salary as Father of 
the Fatherland ; Englishmen contribute seven and a half 
cents ; Russians used to, four and a quarter cents, and 
Austrians eight and a quarter cents; Frenchmen pay 
a little over one-half cent ; Americans one-twelfth part 
of a cent toward the salary of their president. 

Wilhelm then was the best paid of the lot, yet had 
the vulgarity and meanness to begrudge a living wage 
and decent treatment to poor people who helped fill his 
own dinnerpair. 

Indeed the smallness of the all-highest person that 
was, defies imagination. Listen to this exposition of 
the rule and regulations that governed our imperial and 
royal court under William II. 

At the one memorable visit paid to her linen-presses 
(she has been heralded as an exemplary housewife ever 
since) the Kaiserin noticed that the linen was deposited 
on the bare shelves, and asked what it meant. 

" May it please your Majesty," explained the keeper, 
" I have repeatedly asked for paper, but Count Puckler 
says he has no funds for luxuries." 

" Luxuries," repeated the Kaiserin, " luxuries where 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 215 

my linen lies ! " and turning to me, as superintendent of 
the royal household, she said: " See to it that paper of 
the very best quality is purchased this very hour, and 
if the house marshal interferes, advise me." 

Armed with this all-highest authority, I bought sev- 
eral marks' worth of blue paper, and sen^t them to the 
linen room, but ther servant returned with the astonish- 
ing information that the woman dared not accept the 
material, as the stamp of the chief court marshal's 
office was lacking. 

" Nonsense," I said, " tell the keeper I command her 
to place the paper in the presses at once and have no 
more words about it." Five minutes later, Fraulein 
Kubou came in person. 

" Madame," she cried, " I am the sole support of a 
family; do not ruin me 1 If the grandmaster learns 
that I am concerned in this business of runing up bills 
for which there is no appropriation, I shall be sacked." 

" Come with me," I said, " and I will put the paper 
in myself. At the same time you shall send a report in 
writing to the house marshal setting forth what I have 
done, and I will acknowledge that I acted despite your 
protest." 

This letter provoked endless correspondence. 

His Excellency, the grandmaster, to her Ladyship, 
the dame of the royal household ; " I have the honor to 
inform you that you have overstepped your authority, 
and that you will be held responsible with your salary 
for the unauthorized expenses incurred." 

Her Ladyship to the grandmaster : " Nothing of the 
sort. I acted upon her Majesty's express orders." 

The grandmaster to the house marshal : " You must 
pay this paper bill — which her Majesty has ordered." 

The house marshal to the keeper of the linen : " This 
paper bill must be paid for by your department as soon 
as there is a surplus." 

The keeper of the linen to the house marshal : " Sorry 
I have not got a copper. The use of clean linen has 



216 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

again increased, his Majesty having been pleased to 
sleep in his own room several times of late, which means 
twelve extra sheets, according to the last accounting." 

The house marshal to Baron von Mirbach, chief court 
marshal of her Majesty: " Will you oblige this office by 
paying the enclosed bill, which her Majesty herself 
audited? We have no appropriations for such extras." 

Baron von Mirbach to Baron von Lyncker (pri- 
vately) : " You ask me to create a dangerous precedent, 
mon cher. I answer : * No thanks ! Not if I know 
myself.' " 

The house marshal to the keeper of the privy purse : 
" There are no appropriations out of which the enclosed 
bill can be paid, and no surplus funds in any of the 
departments. You will therefore report the case to 
his Majesty, and get the all-highest authorization for 
payment. As the enclosures show, her Majesty herself 
graciously ordered the purchase." 

Eight sheets of foolscap paper, emblazoned with 
crests and garnished with stamps and the most illegible 
signatures, and crammed with officious language in 
lapidary style, — all about sixty-two cents and a half! 
Of course, there v/ould have been just as much fuss if 
the object had been the fraction of a cent. 

The man who was lying awake o' nights, thinking 
about changing the map of the world and enslaving in 
particular, the English-speaking races in America and 
Great Britain, thought in coppers. 

The Kaiser's coppers policy even interfered with 
his predilection for cleanliness. As their Majesties 
were sometimes unable to obtain clean sheets for their 
bed, — the statement that the royal servants, men and 
women, were kept exceedingly short in respect to towels 
and bedclothes will not surprise. As a matter of fact 
the allowance for the first-named article was two per 
tveek; the bed-linen was changed every month. 

One evening, when we were talking in her Majesty's 
dressing-room of the vagaries of Prince Frederick Leo- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 217 

pold, Countess Bassewitz remarked that he compelled 
his valets and the chasseur, serving him at table, to 
bathe morning, noon and night ; that is, always before 
they came into personal contact with him. 

" That is extravagant," said her Majesty ; " but per- 
sons of our rank cannot insist too strongly upon the 
daily bath for their .attendants." 

" If there are enough bathrooms ! " I remarked. 

" Well," said the Kaiserin, " I suppose there is a 
sufficient number in our palaces, at least here and in 
the Schloss.'' 

"I beg your Majesty's pardon, here, as well as in 
Berlin, we have but two bathrooms for servants, — one 
for the men, one for the women." 

The Empress gave me a startled look. " Tv/o bath- 
rooms ? " she gasped. 

" T-w-o," I repeated ; " and not only the people of 
the body-service, but all the liveried and uniformed men 
and women in the palace — coachmen, fourriers, chas- 
seurs and heads of the household departments— are 
expected to use them." 

" My dear," said the Empress, in her haughtiest tone, 
** you are evidently misinformed," and, rising, she shook 
off her dressing sacque with a little shudder, as if to 
repel an unclean sensation. " I do so hate to speak of 
matters of that kind," she added, dismissing us with a 
curt shrug. 

What would her Majesty have thought if I had con- 
tinued in my revelations, for the scarcity of bathrooms 
was not the most disagraceful evidence of penury at the 
Prussian court, by far. The two eighteen by thirty-six 
huckaback towels given out Saturda3^s must suffice for 
the casual bath as well as for the every-day ablutions. 
The servants' wash bowls are little tin affairs holding 
less than three pints; foot-tubs and pitchers are ta- 
booed, together with other conveniences. But that is 
not all. The toilets for the servants are located on the 
backstair landings, which are lighted by kerosene lamps 



218 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

day and night, and one closet must do for every 
twenty-six persons. 

Once or twice one of the Kaiserin's maids of honor 
asked m.e to increase the scanty allowance of linen. " I 
would like to," I answered, " but cannot, as funds for 
labor and material in the wash-kitchen just suffice for 
a stipulated amount of laundry. Half a dozen extra 
stockings per week would upset calculations." 

" But if I furnish the soap? " 

" Your Ladyship is very generous, but the employees 
of the wash-kitchen have all the work they can do now, 
and there is no money to hire more." 

While the Kaiser's and Kaiserin's " body-servants," 
so-called, were allowed to go filthy, the blue-blooded 
retainers were overpaid and overfed and superbly 
housed into the bargain. 

The grandmasters of both Kaiser and Kaiserin and 
the several house marshals received $7,500 per year 
salary, lived in royal villas rent free, and had the free 
use of carriages and horses (or motor cars) for them- 
selves and family for private and official use. The 
court, besides, furnished their households with two 
servants wearing the imperial livery, and as many 
house-maids. Their mileage equaled that of a com- 
manding general, and as traveling fees they received 
$7.50 per day. When their Excellencies wanted to eat 
at home or. dine out, they needed but to notify their 
chief in order to be entitled to an additional $3.75 
per day. 

Her Majesty's grandmistress, the Countess Brock- 
dorif, having no household of her own, occupied a 
splendid apartment in the royal residence, and received 
the same salary, mileage and traveling fees as the 
gentlemen mentioned, while two lackeys and carriages 
galore were subject to her orders. The Kaiser even 
paid mileage for her maid, though the girl denied ever 
having received a copper of it. As to her Excellency, 
she was as sharp after perquisites as the devil is after 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 219 

the souls of poor sinners, and a month seldom passed 
that she did not hand in a bill for so and so many 
meals missed. 

There is an idea abroad that dames of the court 
jendure the caprices of their mistress and the monotony 
of life in the gilded cage out of sheer devotion to 
royalty, or on account of the distinction it confers upon 
the appointee ; but this is not true. 

I received a salary of $1,500 per annum, had royal 
lackeys and maids and carriages, as well as board and 
lodging and travelling fees amounting to $7.50 per day. 

The Kaiser's valets received about $40 salary per 
month, besides board and lodging, and either liveries or 
remuneration for dress-suits, like all the rest of the 
servants and officials hereafter named. To married 
men, lodgings for their families in royal houses were 
assigned. The wardrobemen's salaries varied between 
$20 and $75 per month, according to the age of servi- 
tude, Ebeling, the Kaiser's body-groom, had a few 
dollars more. Rieger, his picturesque gun-charger, had 
$40 per month, and the other chasseurs and stable 
officials received from $30 to $35. 

Her Majesty's body-service included Fraulein von 
Haake, woman of the bed-chamber, salary $40 per 
month; two wardrobe-women, salary $20 to $22 per 
month; two wardrobe man-servants, salary $40 to $45 
per month ; the caretaker of the royal bed had $21 per 
month, besides board and lodging, and $2.50 per month 
for dresses. Her Majesty's two seamstresses, engaged 
all the year round, received fifty cents per day and 
board and lodging. 

Just to tease the people in America who cannot hire 
servants for " love or money," I'll append a list of the 
wages our court used to pay to the ordinary run of 
male and female servants before and during the war. 

The Kaiserin's five footmen had $3 per month; her 
body-coachman, received $37.50, and her body-riding- 
master, $60. The valet, who waited at table, and the 



220 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

understewards, received from $40 to $50 per month. 

Augusta Victoria employed twelve chambermaids for 
her own use, all of them trim, sturdy girls. They 
received $7.50 per month in wages and $5 for dress. 
But all these men and women comprised only an in- 
finitesimal part of the total number employed. Our 
court marshal's office had sixty different kinds of em- 
ployees on its staff, the majority being entitled to board 
and lodging or board wages. The board wage was 
seventy-five cents per day in foreign countries, half that 
amount in Germany. 

Do you wonder that a royal peerage, starving his 
servants at thirty-seven and one-half cents per day, has 
no sympathizers ? But William thought he would never 
need sympathizers. 

Shirking responsibilities toward servants is mighty 
small business, but what do you think of a Kaiser who 
forces his servants to advance him money, and quite 
considerable sums at that? 

When William's court marshal sent servants, men 
and women, to other cities, they had to pay for their 
transportation out of their own pockets. Neither did 
they receive money for expenses, 

I remember that Count Eulenburg, my superior of- 
ficer, at one time dispatched four maids from Berlin 
to Hamburg to prepare the old Schloss for a visit of 
the Emperor — one with linen, another to take care of 
the silver, the rest to put the rooms in order. They 
stopped at Kronberg over night, and borrowed money 
right and left, to procure food, because they had spent 
their last money for railway fares, and could get noth- 
ing to eat in Hamburg until the kitchen crew arrived 
from Berlin ; that is, three or four days later. Count 
Eulenburg, to my utter amazement, bore out the 
women's pleas. " Where should the money for ad- 
vances come from? " he said. " We pay all compulsory 
accounts at the beginning of the month, and what is 
left must be held at the Kaiser's disposal ! " 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 221 

\ 

And the grandmis tress, Countess Brockdorff, ex- 
plained : " We cannot get along without these forced 
loans. But I think the marshal's office might be more 
discriminating. Only single men and girls should be 
sent on journeys, for the supposition is that they have 
a little money put aside. The salary of our people that 
are married is usually spent during the first week after 
pay-day, and if ordered away, they have to borrow to 
get to the place of destination." 

In all the years I served William and Augusta Vic- 
toria, the royal attendants received an advance on their 
mileage and travelling expenses only once, namely, when 
Prince and Princess William, accompanied by an im- 
mense suite, went to Queen Victoria's jubilee. 

But by this hangs a tale. No sooner had the court 
returned to Potsdam than Herr von Liebenau de- 
manded a strict accounting of the moneys disbursed, 
and, by applying the most niggardly estimate on each 
and every item, he succeeded in unraveling numerous 
instances of " extravagance." 

These servants — think of it! — ^had often English 
breakfasts in England instead of the customary coffee 
and rolls, and paid London prices for beer, which are 
considerably higher than those prevailing in Potsdam. 
So the bills were ruthlessly cut, and the next salary day 
saw many clenched teeth, many tears, when it developed 
that the difference between the advance and the reduced 
bills had been deducted from the wages. It is not quite 
safe to mention the jubilee year among the ex-Kaiser's 
former servants. 

The continual trips of servants between Potsdam and 
Berlin were responsible for everlasting quibbles between 
the employees and the treasury. Count Puckler, when 
in charge of the travelling accounts, issued an order 
commanding- all members of the untitled retinue to 
utilize zone-tariff trains only, as their rates were con- 
siderably lower than those of fast trains. 

The men and women would comply with this request, 



222 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

but could not always do so on account of the urgency 
of business intrusted to them. When, afterward, the 
bills for railway fare were presented the most abomi- 
nable rows ensued and servants valuing their standing 
with the court marshal's office very frequently suffered 
the loss of their advances rather than fight for what 
was due them, for though they might be ever so much 
in the right, they dared not attempt to prove their case, 
it being against etiquette to invoke the testimony of 
their Majesties. 

It often happened that the Kaiser or Kaiserin ordered 
an attendant to proceed to the capital instantly. Now, 
if the court marshal doubted the command, the correct 
way would have been to inquire of the Kaiser or 
Kaiserin, but that would be against tradition. Besides, 
to call in doubt an employee's veracity is easier. 

So, by making the Kaiser a present of part of the 
money advanced on his behalf, men-servants and maids, 
in their small way, helped to support the spectacle of 
imperial splendor enacted before the world — the many 
marks and pfennigs wrung from them contributed to the 
royal radiance that blinded onlookers ! 

What do you think of William, Imperator-Rex now, 
when you learn that servant girls' wages were no more 
safe from him than pupillory funds in Belgian banks? 
When it is revealed that in the midst of peace he con- 
fiscated his valet's stipend as unblushingly as the poor 
box in a French village church during the war.? 

Can you imagine an Empress clamoring in vain for 
a couple of toothbrush-holders? Well, Augusta Vic- 
toria wanted some for a week and longer, and could not 
get them. 

" I will have them today," said the Empress. " Send 
for them." 

I did so then and there, and repeated the order every 
morning for an entire week, but only on the afternoon 
of the tenth day were the holders produced. 

It had taken all this time to scrape together $3 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 223 

necessary to procure the much-coveted articles, and her 
Majesty had made twelve separate and distinct rows 
about the matter. 

Scenes and annoyances like these, growing out of the 
chronic withholding of necessary funds, were not limited 
■lo demands for extras. We went through the same 
farce every time a piece of china or glass was broken, 
for the Prussian court had no duplicates of such neces- 
sary articles as wash-pitchers, bowls, pails, soap-dishes 
or water-bottles. When one of these things in the 
Kaiserin's chamber, for instance, was smashed, her chief 
tire woman had to carry the pieces to the Haushof- 
meister, who laid them before the house marshal, who 
laid them before the court marshal, who laid them 
before the treasurer. 

Then the treasurer authorized the making of an 
estimate ^ to replace the articles, the two marshals 
countersigned the document, and sent a wagon into 
town to fetch it, or ordered it sent from Berlin. Of 
course, all this took time; and in the interim the 
Kaiserin had to do without the most necessary utensils 
sometimes. 

As long as I can remember, my royal mistress never 
owned enough trunks to carry, besides her toilets, the 
linen for the imperial bed and bathrooms, and that 
despite the fact that the court was almost continuously 
on the road. Quito frequently her Majesty's linen was 
sent on a journey in drygoods cases or even in card- 
board boxes — odds and ends from the storeroom. 

As to the royal table, it was hardly better served than 
the average seventy-five cent table-d'hote, while ar- 
rangements at the court balls were such as to permit 
only every ninth or tenth of the invited persons to 
obtain a swallow of third-rate champagne and a sand- 
wich. 

The visits of royalty were made occasions of great 
display, of course ; reasonably liberal extra appropria- 
tions were made at such times, and lest the chasseurs 



224 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

made a mistake, all foreigners got the best champagne, 
which otherwise were furnished to their Majesties only, 
but even then the court marshal managed to save an 
honest penny here and there. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Borrowing the simile from another reference of his, the 
Kaiser used to say he would like " to see the entire 
military force of the Fatherland personified in one 
being, that he might practice on it as on a lay figure." 

But considering that the Reichstag has a voice in the 
matter of public expenditure, his Majesty was forced 
to be content to keep but two adjutants continuously 
employed. 

These gentlemen, together with the members of the 
military household, including representatives of all arms 
and of the navy, rarely left his presence. 

Their office adjoined his Majesty's wherever the 
court was established. In the Neues Palais it was 
situated on the ground floor, facing the barracks, — a 
not very spacious but dull room covered by a gray 
carpet and furnished with a number of red damask arm 
chairs placed in front of writing-desks. 

The Kaiser always loved the panoply of pretense and 
the parade of war. As everybody knows, he never tired 
of arraying himself in full regimentals several different 
times per day so he might admire himself dolled up in 
military style. 

During the early days of the Berlin revolution, the 
anarchists sold the Kaiser's uniforms to an enterprising 
Hebrew. His Cit's clothes they stole for themselves. 
There were enough to fit out hundreds of these raga- 
muffins. 

The Kaiser owned a set of uniforms for each of the 
three hundred and odd Prussian regiments, horse, foot 
and artillery. 

Besides the ones appurtenant to the Bavarian, 
Wurtenberg and Saxony contingents, also those of the 

S26 



226 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Austrian, English, Russian, Roumanian, Bulgarian, 
Spanish, Turkish and Swedish armies that enrolled his 
name as colonel, general or field marshal, — the pro- 
prietor of such an official wardrobe needed, of course, 
most extensive storerooms for the multicolored, tasseled 
and gold-laced treasures, and that they were magnifi- 
cently cared for goes without saying. 

He was supremely happy when strutting about in 
any one of these gorgeous uniforms. Space forbids 
minute description of the interesting collection, which, 
moreover, could never be complete, as the European 
military Minotaur, feeding on seven millions of men 
annually, — the original in the Cretan labyrinth was 
satisfied with seven youths and an equal number of 
virgins, — kept on expanding; in other words, as new 
types of uniforms and arms were constantly invented 
and added. 

And when I say that the Emperor owned uniforms 
of all Prussian and almost an equal number of foreign 
regiments, don't forget that he was lord of the sea 
in Germany, Great Britain, Russia and Sweden, — dig- 
nities that carry with them cocked hats, broadswords 
and daggers, blue cloth and silver and gold lace galore, 
— I do not refer to the garments alone, but include all 
the ornaments, badges, sashes, sidearms, caps, helmets, 
czakos, busbies, czapkas, burganets, sabers, cuirasses, 
shoulder-points, knots and epaulettes, silver cords, 
belts, cartridge-cases, laces, etc., belonging to gala, full 
and fatigue accouterments. 

All these innumerable and expensive accessories — a 
single pair of shoulder-knots often cost more than the 
uniform itself — must always be on hand and ready for 
use at any given time, as bright and as good as new. 

A real war-lord's, the great Frederick's entire ward- 
robe was " sold to a Jew for three hundred thalers," and 
among the lot were the identical coat, breeches and 
boots he wore at Rossbach. When, to come down to 
our own period, the late William the First desired to be 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 227 

photographed in the uniform of his bodyguards, one of 
his officers had to lend him a cuirass, his Majesty 
refusing to go to the expense of buying one. And 
these monarchs won more battles than the present 
Kaiser earned, or even offered, racing-cups, fake and 
otherwise. 

As Lafa3^ette raised a frigate and crew at his own 
expense to assist the young American republic, so could 
William have equipped the marines of a first-class 
battleship, or the officers of ten army corps, from his 
wardrobe without being reduced to nakedness. 

The imperial peacock owned likewise scores of cos- 
tumes adapted to various sports, numberless uniforms 
of yacht clubs in Germany and England^ and last, but 
not least, an astounding array of plain clothes, with 
accompaniments of hats, gloves, ties, canes, shoes, 
buttons and scarf pins which for each suit were espe- 
cially selected, forming part of the garment, as it were. 

A valet and two dressers were constant attendants 
in the uniform room from early morning till night, so 
that the Kaiser was able to change his uniforms with 
the same celerity as his mind, 

I recall how a certain young English Princess 
brought up the question of the Kaiser's inaptitude for 
the military with a vengeance. 

The widow of the Red Prince, the late Frederick 
Charles, of Metz fame, was saying: 

" If William has ever been able to resist a sudden 
impulse to any deed, no one in or out of his family 
heard of it. 

" Some years ago he made his wife chief of cuiras- 
siers, and designed a uniform for her. As proprietress 
of this crack regiment, Augusta Victoria is entitled to 
the insignia of a general; but the Emperor, unthink- 
ing as he is, bestowed upon her lieutenant's epaulettes. 
Think of it, — a lieutenant leading a regiment before the 
war-lord in parade, a lieutenant presiding at the state 
banquets in the officers' mess ! 



228 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

" On another occasion, when the Russian craze had 
hold of him, he issued an order compelling the officers 
of the general staff to attend desk-work in riding-boots. 
They did so for a day or two ; but, finding it impossible 
to continue their studies in this heavy accouterment, 
combined among themselves to disobey the command and 
resumed ordinary footgear. 

" But the most thoughtless of all his military 
blunders was his cabinet order creating your grand- 
mother (and the old Princess bowed with a mock cour- 
tesy toward the Englishwoman), Queen Victoria, Chief 
of the First Dragoons." 

" Young Mrs. Aribert," as Louise of Anhalt was 
familiarly called at court, started up, and seemed to 
be struggling for words, 

" Tut, tut ! " appeased her Royal Highness the little 
firebrand, placing one hand on Louise's knee, " no dis- 
respect to her Majesty, I assure you. The stupidity 
was all on my grandnephew's part. He named the First 
Dragoons ' Queen of England Dragoons ' just one 
hundred and eighty-two years, less two months and 
twenty-nine days, after the union between England 
and Scotland went into effect and the realm became 
officially known as Great Britain." 

Everybody in the room sat speechless for a while, 
until Princess Aribert said half-pleadingly : " But, dear 
aunt, the change in the nomenclature that eventually 
had to be made caused no great havoc, I trust." 

" Oh, no ! " replied the Princess, " his Majesty did 
not suffer the least inconvenience on account of that 
error; but the taxpayers who had to pay double for 
the initials attached to the shoulder-straps and on the 
helmets doubtless felt greatly edified by the blunder, 
and so did the officers who for similar reasons were 
several thousand marks out of pocket." 

The Kaiser's invitations to the festivities in honor of 
the late Kaiser Wilhelm's one hundredth birthday pre- 
scribed costumes of the end of the eighteenth century 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 229 

for four hundred young army officers, and during a 
reception at the ScMoss, Princess Radziwill spoke of 
the great difficulties that many array men experienced 
to procure the necessary costumes. 

" These gentlemen have had a month's time to pre- 
pare for my pageant, and I would advise none to be 
laggard in complying with my commands," said the 
Kaiser haughtily. " If there are not enough tailors 
and embroiderers in Berlin, the work can be sent else- 
where." ' 

" With your Majesty's permission, it is not the lack 
of hands and needles, but the scarcity of ' spondulicks,' 
that interferes, A great many of the younger officers, 
especially, can ill afford to spend six to seven hundred 
marks ($150 to $175) on a uniform that becomes use- 
less after a few hours' wear." 

" And where did your Grace acquire all this valuable 
information," resumed the Kaiser, bowing and accen- 
tuating each word with a sneer. 

" Anywhere, everywhere. They talk of nothing else 
at the clubs." Princess Marie's French blood was up. 
" I felt like repeating to him what Pauline Metternich 
told the Empress Eugenie : * I was born a grand dame, 
and I allow no one to ironize me,' " she said afterward. 

The Kaiser shrugged disdainfully. " If it is neces- 
sary to clothe my guests as well as to feed them, I 
will appropriate twenty thousand marks to help your 
impecunious friends to pay for their costumes," he said, 
and at once changed the subject. 

The promise had, however, been heard by everybody 
in the assemblage, and as all of us numbered at least 
one poor relative or friend among the four hundred 
officers, it is not strange that the affair gained wide 
publicity. 

The news seemed to spread throughout Berlin and 
Potsdam like a piece of local intelligence. On the 
strength of it, the young roues of the Union Club 
doubled their stakes, and, the same night, " William- 



230 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

the-Bountiful's " health was drunk in numberless mess- 
rooms and beer-halls by youthful members of the aris- 
tocracy and army men whose greatest care had sud- 
denly and unexpectedly been lifted off their shoulders 
by the Kaiser's words, — lifted to descend again, its 
weight doubled by chagrin and disappointment, in the 
course of a few weeks, for, to quote one of Wilhelm's 
nephews, " The twenty thousand marks' pledge proved 
to be an illusion, if not something worse, — a snare ! " 

" With reimbursement guaranteed, as they thought, 
the officers commanded to the tableaux mvants spared 
no expense in their costuming. The most magnificent 
silks and velvets, the costliest gold and silver embroid- 
ery, were worn by everybody, rich and poor. * We 
don't mind paying a couple of hundred marks ourselves 
in excess of the Kaiser's allowance,' argued these 
whole-souled young men. 

" The result was the happiest — for William : a dis- 
play gorgeous and luxurious far above expectations. 
And when it was over, the Emperor expressed his all- 
highest satisfaction, and went — hunting. He had seem- 
ingly forgotten about the twenty thousand marks, and 
no one dared remind him of his promise." 

As Lord Burghley said to Queen Elizabeth : '* Those 
who would make tools of princes are the tools them- 
selves ! " 

Court and society had not yet ceased talking of this 
exhibition of bad faith, when the Kaiser startled the 
whole country by another incident. 

As his brother Henry was about to embark for Eng- 
land in the man-of-war Koenig Wilhelniy the Kaiser 
sent him a dispatch expressing regret that he had no 
better ship to give him, " because those unpatriotic 
scamps in the Reichstag refused me the necessary 
funds." 

There was a great deal of speculation in the public 
prints and in political circles as to the authenticity of 
the dispatch quoted, and the majority of courtiers even 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 231 

inclined at first to the belief that Prince Henry had 
overstepped his authority when he read the imperial 
message before his officers, for the Prince, though toler- 
ably good-natured and not bright, has the reputation 
of a mischief-maker, and it would be just like him to set 
parliament by the ears at his brother's expense if there 
was the slightest warrant for doing so. 

However, one of the Kaiser's adjutants told me at 
least a week before the scandal became public that his 
Majesty had promised himself and them a great hulla- 
baloo " previous to his brother's sailing." 

Of course, that exonerates Prince Henry; he evi- 
dently " performed his damned duty," as they say in 
Prussia. But, granted the Kaiser created this oppor- 
tunity for insulting the Reichstag in a moment of anger, 
that would not explain the several palpable inconsis- 
tencies of his message,— particularly, the nonsense of 
the assumption that an appropriation made in January 
or February would permit the placing in service of a 
battleship, one or two months later; and, the obvious 
untruth that a better ship was not available. 

Strange, that at the outbreak of the German revo- 
lution the far-famed Prussian army officer did not rush 
to his Kaiser's support, said many, who believed the 
insidious propaganda about unconquerable German 
loyalty. 

For one thing the Kaiser had played false to a great 
number of army officers individually, besides the four 
hundred mentioned, and was rated a pompous martinet 
and brutal master rather than a general of the Napo- 
leon or Grant style, who were beloved and honorea by 
their men. 

Who has not read of William's thundering philippics 
against luxury in the officers' corps of the army? 

" The Prussian lieutenant, captain and colonel must 
find supreme satisfaction in a frugal life. To live above 
one's income is the source of all social evil. Only the 
commanding generals have * duties of representation ' 



282 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

to fulfill and their Excellencies shall not spend more for 
the purpose than the state appropriation permits," 
these are stock phrases of his. And as a variation of 
the stories on patched HohenzoUern trousers, the of- 
ficial telegraph bureau never failed to add the interest- 
ing information that the chief war-lord suffered the red 
facings of his uniform to be renewed several times 
before throwing away a coat. 

In order to see whether his commands were strictly 
obeyed, the Kaiser invited himself to breakfast at the 
casino of some regiment every little while, announcing 
that he would pay ten marks for his and his suite's 
entertainment, not a penny more. 

Now, the managers qi these institutions knew that 
his Majesty had his preferences as to wines and vic- 
tuals, and the imperial court marshal was only too 
ready to enumerate them to the anxious. 

So French champagne of the highest grade, costly 
Rhine wines and Burgundy, imported cordials and cog- 
nacs were bought, also game and fresh sea-food, which 
latter is a luxury with us. 

Furthermore, the exterior and interior of the club 
building were decorated, and often partly renovated, 
"and when, after all these preparations, the lavish 
outlay made, the imperial master departs with his cor- 
poral's guard of attendants (when he had to pay for 
them he never brought more than half a dozen gentle- 
men), and, on taking leave, remarked with self-satisfied 
emphasis : ' You see, my dear colonel, ten marks is quite 
enough for anybody to spend on his stomach; I have 
had a very good breakfast (or dinner), indeed, for that 
amount at your house,' — you should study the faces of 
the subaltern officers," said the Kaiser's adjutants. 

" Count Eulenburg," they argued to themselves, 
" will send the governing board sixty or seventy marks 
within the next three months to pay for the exact 
number of seats occupied by the imperial party, while 
we poor devils will have to pay for the Piper, or 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 233 

Roederer and the other delicacies out of our monthly 
pittance next week." 

As a matter of fact, it used to cost a regimental mess 
from five hundred to fifteen hundred marks every time 
the war-lord tried its ten-marks' menu, and the officers 
had to make up the difference. 

There have been times when the pleasure of feasting 
the sovereign cost the lieutenants of the Potsdam garri- 
son one-tenth of their pay for several months in suc- 
cession, and when the uniformed batmen of these pretty 
young fellows had to go without their more than modest 
wage in consequence. 

But that is not all. The Kaiser's adjutants report 
from time to time stories of wrecked lives — ^lives of army 
men who were lured upon the path that killeth, in con- 
sequence of William's casino visitations. 

It is a mistake to think that the majority of officers 
serving in the Prussian Guards were wealthy men; a 
good many are sons of high officials, endowed with 
mighty titles joined to a diminutive salary, who can 
give their boys but very scant assistance. 

Of course, these handicapped chaps wanted to shine 
with the rest, and working, as it were, under the eyes 
of the imperial chief, endeavored to attract his atten- 
tion. Now, there was only one way for a subaltern 
officer to secure this boon under William, viz,: tc dress 
smartly, for the Emperor was known to pick the best- 
accoutered man out of a hundred any time. 

But if one aspired to be the Beau Brummel of the 
ballroom, the hunting-field, the club, the drill and 
parade grounds, credit with the regimental wardrobe- 
master was soon exhausted. Tailors demanding enor- 
mous profits as an offset against the risks involved had 
to be employed, and from them to the usurer was but 

one step. According to this recipe. Count von R , 

a dashing captain of the Body Hussars, was ruined, 

and Herr von L , of the First Guards, kept him 

company, with hundreds of others. 



234 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Herr von L 's mother, widow of a privy coun- 
cilor, who made her son a yearly allowance, besides 
keeping a family of several unmarried daughters out 
of a pension of forty-five hundred marks, came to me, 
requesting an audience of her Majesty. When, accord- 
ing to instructions, I inquired after the nature of her 
business, she confessed, to my utter consternation, that- 
she intended to petition the Empress to use her in- 
fluence toward keeping the Kaiser away from the 
military casinos. 

Of course, to let Madame von L come near 

Augusta Victoria was entirely out of the question under 
the circumstances; but while, as a lady of the court, 
I did my best to dissuade her from her purpose, as a 
woman, I could not close my ears to that poor mother's 
arguments, 

" My son's pay," she said, " amounted, as you prob- 
ably know, to one hundred and seventy-five marks 
($33.50) per month, of which all but forty marks ($10) 
were deducted for wardrobe account, representation 
and benefit funds, board and lodging, etc. Out of these 
forty marks and half as much again — my own modest 
contribution — ^Walter had to pay for his suppers, his 
tobacco, his carfare, his amusements and incidentals, 
and, though it was hard work, he managed to keep 
within his income until his Majesty began to invite 
himself to the casino. 

" After the Kaiser's first visit," the worried mother 
told me, " my boy had to contribute fifteen marks 
toward the cost of the entertainment, and, to reimburse 
himself, borrowed a double gold crown from a comrade. 
In the course of the next month, his Majesty repeated 
his costly visit, and my boy was bled a second tim.e. 
Then, after paying his comrade, he retained just five 
marks out of his pay, while a month of hunger and 
humiliation w^as staring him in the face! Soon after- 
ward, Walter found himself struggling in the clutches 
of the usurer, and within six months (they have not 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 235 

much patience with us penniless bureaucrats) his dis- 
grace was gazetted. 

" And beHeve me," added the broken-hearted mother, 
"my son's case is not an exceptional one; other prom- 
ising young lives have been wrecked in the same way, 
and the ruin of hundreds of officers who judge the com- 
manding chief by his deeds rather than by his words is 
threatening. 

" For their sake, for the sake of their mothers and 

sisters," concluded Madame von L , earnestly, " I 

am seeking audience with the Empress. I want to 
throw myself at her Majesty's feet, picturing to her 
the perils to which our sons are exposed by coming into 
personal contact with the Kaiser. I will say to her: 
* His Majesty is certainly actuated by the highest 
motives, but the splendor of his presence, the gorgeous- 
ness of the entertainments provided for him, are apt to 
befool ambitious young men by deceiving them as to 
their own insignificance, and by lightening their sense 
of the responsibilities they owe to themselves, their 
family and their country.' " 

In this connection, an observation by General von 
Kessel, then commander of the First Guards, deserves 
mention. " If his Majesty wants to see his officers well 
dressed, he should stop eating them out of pocket-money 
at their casinos. They cannot afford to play the host 
and pay their tailors at the same time," said the dashing 
adjutant. 

Herr von Kessel referred to his Majesty's criticism 
of the dress of certain officers of the Breslau Cuiras- 
siers, a body of troopers from whom William demanded 
hospitality on all occasions. 

In foggy London even the gloomiest days of the war 
lost some of their somber hue with people " in-the- 
know " when it was telegraphed from the front that the 
Kaiser intended to be a real war-lord and take command 
of an ensuing battle. 

" Good for our boys," " the most decent thing he 



236 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

ever contemplated," said those English who remembered 
the stories of the mimic battle maneuvers, which 
William loved to prepare in times of peace, and which 
General von Haeseler characterized as magnificent, each 
ending like that between the fabulous lions whose tails 
alone remained on the field. 

In his book, " The Blot Upon the Brain," William 
W. Ireland, M.D., Edinburgh says : " The power-drunk 
are easily beaten in the field by generals who prefer 
what is essential to what is superfluous." 

As to the " superfluous," — ^when returning from a 
review, the war-lord seldom spoke of the success or 
non-success of the exercises ; that he caught Lieutenant 
von X. Y. wearing an overcoat an inch shorter than 
the regulations stipulate, or a sub-officer attired in 
pantaloons of his own, instead of those furnished by 
the regiment, w^s of far greater importance in the 
Kaiser's eyes. 

For his eyes reflected the mere outer film of things 
correctly enough, but did not penetrate below the sur- 
face because the mind directing them worked too rapidly 
to weigh the relative importance of things. 

Once, at the greatest of military spectacles, the an- 
nual spring parade on the Tempelhofer Feld, which in 
all sorts of weather attracts Berliners by thfe hundred 
thousands, besides tens of thousands of visitors, the 
Kaiser eyed his wife's uniform and accouterment critic- 
ally, and missed the special decoration given her by 
Queen Victoria, portraits of Victoria and Albert, sur- 
rounded by a chain of brilliants. He was furious. 
"How could you lose that precious jewel?" he de- 
manded, disregarding the presence of his adjutants; 
" next you will drop the Regent ( the finest of the Prus- 
sian Crown jewels) in some gutter, and I shall have to 
make good the loss." 

" I do not know," stuttered the Empress. " Frau 
von Haake fastened it." 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 237 

" Haake did? Well, I just long to give her a piece 
of my mind ! " 

And in order to jump on that miserable maid with 
as little delay as possible, the puissant war-lord cut 
in two the proudest military review of the year, to which 
princes by the score and all the ambassadors and 
ministers had been invited, while half the town had 
turned out in its honor ! 

And Paul of Russia was called a madman for run- 
ning a mile to cudgle a soldier ! The ornament, by the 
way, was returned by an honest workman, who found 
it in the grass and who got less than the legal fee as 
reward, and no recompense for his travelling expenses 
to Potsdam. 

" One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, 
and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime 
again." 

On another august military occasion, my mistress 
received most alarming news from Heligoland. 

" In the course of some maneuvers," said Count 
Waldersee's cipher dispatch, " the Kaiser narrowly 
escaped drowning. For God's sake, beg his Majesty 
to desist from going to sea in heavy weather." 

It seems that William got a wetting while attempt- 
ing to cross from the Hohenzollern to a Hamburg 
Liner. His unreasonable love for having everything 
his own way led him to tempt fate, hence the appeal 
to the Empress, for " Uncle Alfred," too, swallowed a 
bucketfuU of water when William got his fill. 

On another occasion, the Kaiser went a-junketting 
on the small cruiser litis and the trip was dubbed a 
maneuver, so that the public treasury might be mulcted 
for the cost. William, as we know, used to embrace 
every opportunity for shifting expenses on his subjects' 
shoulders. 

Hahncke, one of the Iltis^ officers, was an ambitious 
young fellow, well liked on board, but somewhat lack- 
ing diplomacy. 



238 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

When, on the first day out, the Kaiser greete'd him 
with a patronizing air, saying to Prince Eulenburg 
that he meant to be particularly gracious " to the old 
man's cub, even if he did not have the making of an 
admiral in him," the lieutenant made some show of 
resentment and withdrew from the royal presence at 
the first possible moment. 

That notwithstanding he received a " command " to 
attend the after supper drinking bout billed for the 
evening's entertainment. 

There, surrounded by fawning sycophants, the 
Kaiser loaded Hahncke with mock favors, ordering him 
to drink more than was good for him. 

Later, himself drunk with wine and arrogance, the 
Kaiser abused the lieutenant as a " sot " who ought 
to be reported to his captain for misbehavior. 

Again Hahncke refused to accept the Kaiser's insults 
like a true courtier, i.e., as the essence of refined humor, 
but at the time trouble was- avoided, the captain order- 
ing all junior officers to retire. 

Going on deck early next morning, the Kaiser found 
Hahncke engaged in drilling a company of sailors and 
started in at once finding fault. 

" Couldn't he see that this man hadn't washed his 
neck," or that "another held his sword awkwardly?" 

Hahncke's company was the " dirtiest gang of boo- 
bies that ever passed review before his imperial eye," 
and he would make an " example of them and their neg- 
lectful officer." 

At this von Hahncke stepped forward briskly, taking 
a firmer grip on his sword. 

" I beg your Majesty to step into the cabin — I have 
something to communicate to your Majesty," he said, 
adding under his breath : " For discipline's sake, I 
must see your Majesty alone." 

The Kaiser gave the company of sailors a furtive 
glance and said: "The lieutenant will report your 
punishment. Meanwhile, stand at attention." 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 239 

William then went ahead into the main cabin, which, 
for the time being, was deserted, and addressed von 
Hahncke sarcastically : " And what may your lieu- 
tenantship have to say to me? Be quick. If there is 
any excuse for the piggishness in your company, out 
with it ! " 

" I am not here to make excuses," replied Hahncke, 
looking the Kaiser squarely in the eye. " I asked you 
to step into the cabin to settle a point of honor. 
You have insulted me before my comrades and be- 
fore my men without reason or warrant; you have 
trampled on m}^ military honor and on my manhood 
and I want you to give me the satisfaction to which 
I am entitled at your hands as a Prussian 
officer." 

The Kaiser moved uneasily. " Lieutenant von 
Hahncke," he said, assuming his most imperious air, 
" you will retire to your cabin and await my pleasure. 
Give up 3^our sword. You are a prisoner." 

" Not until you have given me satisfaction," cried 
Hahncke, advancing menacingly. 

By this time the Kaiser had edged to the door of the 
cabin and, as he was about to step out, he said, with 
all the brutal disdain he is capable of : " Shut your 
snout ! " 

Before William could make another move, Hahncke's 
tall figure was bending over him;-' 

" Did you speak officially, or shall I regard your in- 
sults as the outbursts of a drunken and disorderly 
mind.?" he hissed into the Emperor's ear, totally neg- 
lectful of giving William his accustomed title of 
Majesty. 

"How dare you, canaille.? " demanded the Emperor, 
with blanched face and gnashing his teeth. 

But he had not quite finished the damning word, when 
von Hahncke's good right hand, dropping the sword, 
shot out and landed squarely on the Emperor's jaw, 
felling him to the ground. As he lay there, blood 



240 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

gushing from his mouth, the 3^oung officer realized what 
he had done and rang the bell. 

" His Majesty is not well," he said to the orderly. 
" Send for his valet and dispatch a man to the com- 
mandant, informing him that I have a report to make." 

Pandemonium reigned on the litis- for the next fifteen 
minutes. All sorts of conflicting reports were whis- 
pered on deck, in mess-room, below, everywhere, but the 
most audacious only dared hint that his Majesty might 
have been overcome by an epileptic fit. 

While the Kaiser's prostrate form was carried to the 
chart-room, his own cabin being in disorder, the white- 
faced Hahncke told his story to the horrified com- 
mander. 

When he had finished, his superior officer merely said : 
" Your sword, sir, you are my prisoner — go to your 
room until further notice." And under his breath he 
added : " As a Prussian officer and descendant of a 
long line of soldiers, you know, of course, what is ex- 
pected of you." 

Poor Hahncke did know. As soon as he got hold of 
his revolver he pressed the muzzle against his temple, 
at the same time jumping off deck. His body was never 
recovered. 

The Kaiser was with difficulty brought to by his 
physicians, who, having instructions from the com- 
mandant, expressed satisfaction to him that the " acci- 
dent had passed off without leaving considerable dis- 
figuring marks. 

" The beam that struck your Majesty as the ship 
gave that sudden lurch might have broken your 
Majesty's chin or cheek bone. Your Majesty's subjects 
ought to thank God on their bended knees for the good 
luck that attended your Majesty amid ill-fortune." 

I don't blame the Kaiser for accepting the story and 
causing it to be telegraphed all over the world. 

As to poor Hahncke, quite an elaborate yarn was 
concocted to explain his death. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 241 

He had been in love with a young woman " beneath 
his rank," and had asked the Emperor for permission 
to marry her, but, of course, his Majesty had sternly 
refused. 

" From that moment on," said the official papers, 
" young Hahncke became melancholy and his suicide 
was the result of much brooding over his hopeless love 
affair." 

There were other versions, too, but none came any- 
where near the truth. Nor was it explained why the 
litis remained in commission three weeks longer than 
originally intended. 

The real reason was: His Majesty did not dare go 
ashore until the last traces of the punishment he re- 
ceived had disappeared. 

So much for the physical stigmata. As to the moral, 
William tried to forget them in drink. He probably 
drank more champagne during these three weeks than 
during any like period of his life except on that cold 
November day (1918) when he travelled from Berlin 
to Cassel to take council with his wife and children 
about inviting Scheidemann and Haase to enter the 
government with Prince Max, and when the " Reds " 
refused to see him, or take pity on him, unless he first 
dismissed Ludendorff. 



CHAPTER XV 

It has been my privilege to meet practically all the 
Diplomats of my time. Spending my life at European 
courts, I have been thrown into relations with states- 
men from all parts of the world. And after this long 
intimacy with Kings and Queens, with Princes and Am- 
bassadors, I do not hestitate to say that William 
seemed to have the least kingly mind of them all. I 
witnessed his judgment of men and events while I 
lived in his house and listened to his opinions on world 
affairs. I wondered at his admiration for the Sultan 
of Turkey ; I saw his difficulties with the Czar of Rus- 
sia; his dissensions with the Emperor of Austria; and 
all those erratic outbreaks which kept his Chancellor ; 
busy explaining. But even his Chancellor did not know 
enough to study the psychology of the greatest force 
on earth: America. 

Before the war, I presume, from time to time you 
have seen paragraphs in the papers setting forth the i 
Kaiser's aspirations to emulate Frederick the Great. \ 
Though anachronistic, there is nothing discreditable in 
such an ambition; yet members of the household, who 
like myself, saw William grimacing for half-hours at a 
time before a mirror hanging by the side of a life-size 
portrait of Frederick, could not help feeling apprehen- 
sive that behind this there was more than vainglorious- 
ness. I 

As a matter of fact, the monarch of the end of the \ 
eighteenth century and his successor of the beginning 
of the twentieth have as little in common, outwardly 
and inwardly, as the second Ludwig of Bavaria and 
the fourteenth Louis of France had. That William, 

242 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 243 

ocular disproof notwithstanding, insisted upon imagin- 
ing himself Frederick's counterpart, was but a phase 
of his monomania of grandeur equivalent to the hallu- 
cinations of which his late mad cousin was possessed. 

That a general can do everything was one of the 
Kaiser's pet phrases — because they, " receive their in- 
structions from me." 

William said he liked the Sultan as the embodi- 
ment of absolutism, as a ruler prepared to rule at the 
hazard of seeing one-half of his people dead on the 
ground, that the other half may learn to obey. " If," 
he continued, " my grand-uncle, Frederick William IV 
had possessed but a spark of the spirit that lives in the 
so-called sick man, I should be monarch in the true 
sense of the word today, though Berlin gutters might 
have run with blood for weeks in succession during 
March, '48." 

Yet William did not Mtempt to improve on Fred- 
erick William. When in November, Berlin " saw red," 
he tamely sneaked oiff to Holland and hired an extra 
typist to take down his " defense." 

No doubt he meant what he said at Frankfort, 
namely that he would " rather see his forty-two mil- 
lions of Prussians dead on the battlefield than give up 
one foot of ground gained by the Franco-German war," 
— what are human lives to him? — but as the forty-two 
millions and some twenty-eight millions more decided 
differently, he found it convenient to step from the 
heights of the sublime to the depths of the ridiculous. 

His hands red with the blood of forty thousand mur- 
dered Christians, the Sultan received a colored photo- 
graph representing the imperial family in a loving 
group, — Kaiser and Kaiserin and all the children. 

" My master," our Ambassador, was ordered to say 
in his presentation speech, " hopes that this simple 
souvenir may be acceptable to your Majesty as a token 
of the Kaiser's affection and eternal friendship," mas- 
sacres or no massacres. 



244 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Twice the German envoy had telegraphed Prince 
Hohenlohe for further advices on this piece of diplo- 
matic business ; his first telegram seemed to indicate 
that he looked upon the picture as a belated valentine 
gift, or something of the sort. 

On being reassured of its up-to-dateness, he wired he 
would rather resign than carry out so degrading an 
act after what had happened in Constantinople; but 
Hohenlohe, a raid of the scandal sure to ensue, per- 
suaded Baron Saurma to withdraw his threat, and so 
the presentation took place with due ceremony to both 
Majesties' profoundest satisfaction. 

Subsequently there was talk that the Kaiser was well 
paid for his good offices to the Sultan. Five million 
francs were said to have come from the Tscheragan 
Serai, to the ScJiloss, and our court marshals, hoping 
to profit by this sudden windfall, were in a happy mood 
in consequence ; but their prevailing penury was not 
relieved, and the customary offering of the Padishah 
arrived as in former years, only more promptly. Ab- 
dul sent William long-maned ponies from Barbary, 
and our lord repaid his autocratic colleague with some 
of the choice product of Trakehnen stud. 

" Women do not understand about these things," 
was the Emperor's rejoinder when her Majesty ob- 
jected to having her likeness and that of the children 
sent to the " wholesale murderer of Christians." 
"What do women know about being consequential? 
These Armenians were rebels, and my friend, the Sul- 
tan, treated them as I would treat a mob opposing my 
authority, any day." 

" But," pleaded her Majesty, " Marschall tells me it 
was primarily a religious riot, the Mussulmans falling 
on the Giaurs and killing them off like so many sheep." 

The Kaiser shrugged his shoulders. " I am shep- 
herd of the Lutheran Christians in Prussia," he said, 
" those in foreign lands must take care of themselves." 

And later he sent Prince Heinrich on " the new 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 245 

crusade, to uphold the Cross and punish the slayers of 
Christians in China." 

But, then, William had never dined with the Son of 
Heaven; and that worthy's Viceroy, Li Hung Chang, 
when he visited Germany, utterly failed to live up to 
William's expectations. 

The craze to " show off " is egoism on its hind legs, 
— a very different brand from the harmless amusement 
William found in pronouncing toasts to his grand- 
mother in the words : " I drink to the health of the 
Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, 
Chief of my First Guard Dragoons," or even from the 
speech the Kaiser made in deposing Count Waldersee 
as Chief of the General Staff, when he insinuated that, 
by burying liim in the province "where her Majesty, 
the Empress, first saw the light," royal honors (instead 
of a slight) were conferred. 

Some of our courtiers excused all the Kaiser did on 
the plea of impulsiveness, a condition which they take 
to be an attribute of genius. Whether his egotistical 
brutality broke up a banquet, as it did when he drove 
to the Casino of the Guard Dragoons merely to say 
that as Counts Herbert and Wilhelm Bismarck were in 
attendance, he, the Kaiser, preferred to eat at home, or 
whether he spoiled a family reunion by revising the 
guests' list, — whether he imperiled future politics by 
accusing a Crown Prince to his father or by making 
ill-natured remarks about another heir's bride-elect, — 
these complaisant clawbacks said the sovereign must 
neither be blamed nor criticized. 

But woe to others assuming like privileges ! There 
was Nicholas, Czar-to-be of all the Russias, but merely 
a gay young gentleman when a visitor at our court. 

No wonder a week of state banquets and parades, 
and parades and state banquets, made him long for 
less formal amusements. 

On the evening when the Kaiser and Kaiserin and the 
rest of the nation's great were expecting his Imperial 



246 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Highness at the palace of the Russian Ambassador, he 
sent his regrets, adding tliat he was enjoying himself 
so hugely, it wx)uld be a shame to break up his party. 

As we sat down without the guest of honor, William's 
face was a study : wrath, tempered by surprise, was 
pictured in every line of it. He showed his annoyance, 
yet seemed to be incredulous of the slight offered. As 
her Majesty expressed it, he thought for a time it was 
all a joke; that anyone in his sober senses should dare 
to affront him, he refused to believe. 

However, even before Roman Punch was served, 
everybody in the festive chambers knew that the Czaro- 
vitch was at Duke Gunther's (brother of the Kaiserin) 
in the Palais Pourtales, whither he had gone at one 
o'clock, and where a motley array of rakes, marquises 
and dancing-girls used to convene. 

They had a great time, those two royal bachelors 
and their friends, and when, finally, his Imperial High- 
ness's adjutant reminded him that it was necessary to 
prepare for supper at the Embassy, Nicholas avowed 
that he preferred an hour with his Mignon to an eter- 
nity with all the German Emperors and Empresses 
that ever lived. 

At the concert, I heard Count Schouvalow whisper 
to his wife : " The Kaiser insists upon reporting this 
business to the Czar, with all details, the Empress 
Frederick's protest and my own notwithstanding. As 
for Duke Gunther, he told her Majesty that he will 
kick him out of the army." 

The Duke of Schleswig, accordingly, got his walking- 
papers and Czar Alexander a furious letter, complain- 
ing of his son's disregard for the decencies of life and 
denouncing his proclivities for vice. But twenty-one 
months later they carried Alexander to the Peter-Paul 
Cathedral a dead man, and Nicholas, the slurred and 
despised, mounted the throne of the Northern Empire. 

As a flash of genius, too, those amiable pick-thanks 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 247 

praised the Kaiser's feat at Darmstatlt, when standing 
on the castle balcony with the Czar, he suddenly placed 
his arm about Nicholas's shoulders, thereby giving the 
imperial camera man, on watch, a chance for a sensa- 
tional snapshot. The Kaiser promptly turned the neg- 
ative over to a Berlin speculator, and soon the show 
windows offered ocular proof " that the relations be- 
tween Berlin and St. Petersburg were of the most cor- 
dial character." 

But when the pictures reached Muscovite dealers, 
ten days later, a decree of confiscation went forth; 
the photographs were pronounced apocryphal, and the 
Russian official telegraph and news companies received 
orders to " feature this piece of intelligence and give 
wide publicity to the fact that a fraud had been prac- 
ticed upon the public." 

A great storm was raised when the Czar and Czar- 
itza, then staying in Darmstadt, refused to see the 
Grand Duke and Duchess of Baden on the plea that 
their time was all taken up. 

" Nicholas must make time for the daughter of the 
venerable William I," cried our papers. Whereat their 
Russian Majesties were exceedingly amused. 

" That the Czar must do a thing, despite his disin- 
clination," said Nicholas, " is an argument worthy of 
the ' nation of thinkers.' However, I value my health 
above the approval of united Germany. Their Royal 
Highnesses may charge my refusal to see them to the 
man who invented kissing as part of royal salutations. 
I would not kiss the Grand Duke or Grand Duchess 
for all the gold in Siberia — all Siberia's gold ready 
mined and coined." 

Today these squabbles of crowned-heads-that-were 
sound like echoes of the 18th century. William got 
offended with " Nicky " and rapped him on the wrists 
by denouncing him to Papa. Papa died and left 
" Nicky " in possession. Then " Nicky" went and 



248 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

smashed William on the head. And now " Nicky " is 
as dead as Louis XIV, while the Kaiser and Kaiserin 
are as defunct as mutton, but less useful. 

It happened at the banquet held in honor of Li Hung 
Chang at the Neues Palais. Toward the close of the 
repast, the Emperor was handed a dispatch. To tear 
open the envelope, read the message and burst out 
laughing, was the work of a moment. 

These strange antics — they must have been strange 
indeed in the eyes of a Chinese — the Bismarck of the 
Yellow Jacket and the three-eyed peacock's feather 
viewed with wonderment, and William, observing Li's 
looks ordered the interpreter to inform the Viceroy 
that the Kaiser's merriment was caused by the news 
of an important engagement of marriage. 

Now Li wanted to know everything whether it be 
the bottom of a magnum, or a family affair. So he 
sent word that he would be obliged if his Majesty cared 
to tell him which of his friends had made a fool of him- 
self. 

In answer the Kaiser handed the interpreter the tele- 
gram. It announced the bethrothal of the Prince of 
Naples to Princess Helene of Montenegro. 

Soon afterward the dinner came to an end, and Li, 
still puzzling, heard the Kaiser say a few words to 
Count Eulenburg which made that gentleman laugh 
even more immoderately than the Kaiser had done. 

" See what the joke is, and be sure to get a satis- 
factory answer at last," demanded the Viceroy, im- 
patiently. 

" The Kaiser " — this was the answer brought back 
— " told Count Eulenburg that the grandmother of 
Princess Helene of Montenegro had been a chestnut 
peddler." 

What his Majesty really said was: "This one's 
grandmother was but a street vagabond, peddling 
chestnuts." 

The news from Rome was an awful blow to my mis- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 249 

tress, for up to then she had never given up hope that 
Victor Emmanuel would marry her sister Feo. The 
Kaiser's brutal joke helped her over the embarrassing 
situation. 

" An excellent bonmot," she exclaimed ; " it shall 
have a place in my diary." 

If the saying had but remained between the covers 
of that precious volume, the key of which rests on her 
Majesty's heart! But it was thought good enough to 
become a " winged word " among the friends of the 
imperial couple, and of course found its way to the 
Quirinal palace. 

Naturally the royal granddaughter of the Street 
Vagabond was not enthusiastic when William invited 
her husband, the King of Italy, to commit suicide in 
August, 1914. And she rejoiced exceedingly when first 
her father, the King of Montenegro, and later Italy 
joined the Allies against Austria May 23, 1915, for 
that meant war against William sooner, or later.. 

On the whole the Kaiser's notions of making him- 
self loved closely resembled the rattlesnake's, only the 
rattler is more diplomatic. 

Then came that affair with Ambassador Herbette. 
The representative of France objected to the intimacy 
that had sprung up between the Kaiser and the French 
naval attache, M. de Graucy. 

" If you understand your business, you must know 
that you are nothing but a well-paid and highly orna- 
mental spy," he is reported to have said to de Graucy ; 
" how can you serve your country if you allow yourself 
to be bamboozled by imperial favors and dazzled by the 
monarch's amiableness and charm of speech? " 

To the Emperor, who had asked him as a personal 
favor to desist from his resolution to procure M. de 
Graucy's immediate recall, the brave Herbette made 
answer: " Parbleu, your Majesty, I insist upon doing 
my house-cleaning in my own way." 

These two speeches are matters of historic record 



250 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

and I may add that the above version is from the 
Kaiser's own lips; — ^I was present when his Majesty 
reported them to the Empress. What the world does 
not know, is the double meaning of the Frenchman's 
allusion to house-cleaning. An ambassador, like other 
great lords, has tv/o families, a personal and an official 
one. De Graucy belonged to the latter, and Herbette 
disowned him as soon as so extreme a measure seemed 
called for. But by that time stories of the Kaiser's 
faible for Madame Herbette had reached the ears of 
her husband. 

Scant secrecy had been observed. Frequenters of 
Pariser Platz, where the Embassy was located, had 
noticed the Emperor's phaeton and pair in front of the 
hotel for half-hours at a time, day by day, and had 
talked about it, first to curse William's apparent zeal 
in " running after the French " ; afterward, when they 
learned of the existence of a beautiful woman in the 
case, to smile approvingly and wish the sovereign suc- 
cess. 

At court, the ice had been broken by a remark of 
the Princess of Meiningen, who said one day, when 
the Kaiser's love for France was discussed : " Yes, and 
I understand he has the good taste to be wanting in 
respect to a Frenchwoman of esprit whom we all 
know." 

There was probably nothing at all in this talk, yet, 
whether there was or not, Herbette decided to stop it. 
When invitations for a court ball arrived, he accepted, 
but three days before the affair came off, he caused 
Madame to send her regrets announcing that his Ex- 
cellency alone would be able to do himself the honor to 
attend the ball. 

House marshal Baron Lyncker happened to have 
business in the Kaiser's study when the perfumed note 
bearing the ambassadress's initials in silver arrived. 

"His Majesty," he says, "tore open the better, 
and scanning its contents, exclaimed : ' Advise Eulen- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 251 

burg that the ball is off. He must at once recall the 
invitations.' 

"At your Majesty's orders," said the dutiful Lyn- 
cker, " but as the greater part of the delicacies for the 
buffets are already in the hands of the chefs and pas- 
try-cooks, while the sweetmeats were delivered a few 
hours ago, what is your Majesty's pleasure with res- 
pect to these goods? " 

The Emperor had listened with every indication of 
impatience. 

" Never mind, the stuff that cannot be used in the 
house may be sent to the hospitals," he said. Then, 
walking straight up to him and staring with flaming 
eyes into space, the Kaiser continued: " Do you know 
why I disappoint these several thousand invited per- 
sons? Because I cannot permit Herbette to again set 
foot in my house. He wants to come, but he shall not. 
Indeed, I would rather see this ScJiloss in ruins than 
spend an evening with him in the same room." 

He read Madame Herbette's letter a second time, 
and acting as if a sudden thought had struck him, 
added: "The news that de Graucy is to go has just 
been confirmed. It is a direct insult and scandal. I 
will not rest until Herbette is made to leave Berlin." 

A few years before he died, the Czar Alexander had 
founded a sort of Imperial and Royal Hague Confer- 
ence or Tribunal at liis summer resort, his father-in- 
law's palace of Fredensborg, near Copenhagen. Wil- 
liam, of course, was most anxious to be of these gather- 
ings of monarchs and kings of the futui'e, among them 
the Prince and Princess of Wales, the King of Sweden, 
the Hesses, several Orleans and Bourbons, etc., and my 
mistress had her hands full explaining why the Kaiser 
did not join these royalties. She asserted that the 
increasing volume of business made it necessary for his 
Majesty to pass by Copenhagen. 

But I have it on the authority of a high official in 
the Russian Embassy that Czar Alexander distinctly 



252 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

refused to be disturbed in his retreat by " that young 
man," while, at the same time, the Danish Minister in 
Berlin hinted that Queen Louise was not well enough 
to stand the excitement of such visits. It saved the 
Danish court a pot of money besides, for the Kaiser's 
suite was seldom less than sixty head strong, even when 
he travelled in semi-state. Imagine that gang, with 
appetites whetted by a sea-voyage, descending upon the 
little island court, which, though not ashamed to ex- 
hibit its cocoanut matting in the royal corridors and 
its crazy little oil-lamps before the immensely wealthy 
Russians, must needs brush up and go on to no end of 
expense to make as good a showing as possible before 
these shoddy Berliners. Besides, the Kaiser always ex- 
pected that some military or naval display would be 
especially arranged for him. 

But not only poor kings like Christian, objected to 
these imperial invasions ; at Rome and Vienna, not to 
mention the small German courts, the cry, " The Prus- 
sians are coming!" was sure to cause a panic. 

Once the Kaiser returned in high dudgeon from 
Vienna, whither he had gone unexpectedly to attend 
the funeral of Archduke Albrecht. Albrecht had been 
a good hater of Prussia all his life, and if his ideas 
had prevailed in 1870-1871 Austria would have fallen 
foul of the Prussian rear and flank. 

This had been repeatedly discussed in the press, and, 
in view of the circumstance, Emperor Francis Joseph 
was loath to invite the Kaiser to the funeral. But Will- 
iam argued : " here is an event upon which the eyes of 
the world will be* riveted for a day at least, — a pompous 
funeral, — where one may cut a figure." 

William rushed off to Austria pellmell, but not with- 
out having previously instructed the overseer of the 
official scribes, to proclaim from the housetops that the 
German Emperor had magnanimously forgotten all 
about the late Archduke's evil intentions, and had gone 
to pay his imperial respects .to the dead foe. 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 253 

The first effect of Wilhelm's surprise party was the 
withdrawal from the obsequies of the dead man's 
brother-in-law, the Bavarian Prince Regent. Luitpold, 
had no ambition to walk behind William. The Hof- 
hurg officials were thrown into the utmost confusion. 

The place of chief mourner had been reserved for 
Francis Joseph; now there were two kaisers to be 
treated with equal distinction. 

However, the funeral passed off without a hitch; 
but William soon found that Francis Joseph, was not 
in the humor to talk politics. He would neither argue 
about Faure, nor about the question of the renewal of 
the Triple Alliance. 

This the Emperor himself reported on coming home, 
blaming everybody but himself for the rebuffs ex- 
perienced. What he did not tell (the Empress learned 
of it later through her brother, who had it from the 
Princess Philip of Coburg) was that Francis Joseph 
treat f}d him with so much coolness that his Majesty 
left his apartments in the Hofburg and took up his 
quarters with Philip Eulenburg, at the German Em- 
bassy, where the object of the visit was lost sight of at 
an informal dinner enlivened by songs and dances 
where hired vaudeville st_ars and the ambassadorial trou- 
badour himself performed. 

And that happened a year after William had called 
Francis Joseph, at Pola, " my best friend, with whom 
I am united in sincerest friendship, and who is my 
most loyal companion in arms." The King of Saxony 
had to act as peacemaker between the two Emperors. 

" As a querulous and obstreperous servant," Chan- 
cellor von Caprivi was sent back into obscurity — and 
Prince Hohenlohe (Uncle Chlodwig) was appointed in 
his stead, whereupon our palace once more became a 
place where one could eat and sleep in comfort, go to 
bed at stated hours, and set about one's morning toilet 
without fear of being called away at the most inoppor- 
tune moment to decipher dispatches, run errands com- 



254 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

pletely out of one's sphere, or help to dry the royal 
mistress's tears. 

It looked so at least, but courtiers propose, and 
our dear relations dispose. Hohenlohe had not been in 
office a week when the fifty-six other Hohenlohes (find 
them enumerated in the Almanach de Gotha), fortified 
and backed by their one hundred and sixty-odd grand- 
mothers, mothers, aunts, wives and daughters, began 
pestering their Majesties with allusions to the great 
discrepancy between their kinsman's modest stipend 
as chancellor and his big salary as Emperor's lieuten- 
ant in Alsace — a difference of a round hundred thou- 
sand marks ($25,000) per annum. 

" It is iinpossible from the family's standpoint, to 
permit such a sacrifice without idemnification," they 
whined. 

" The Prince belongs, above all, to his kindred, whose 
glory and prosperity he is bound to help to increase. 
And how can he live up to his duties as chief of the 
first branch of the younger line of the Hohenlohe- 
Waldenburg-Schillingsfurst's if he throws away a for- 
tune every year of his life ? " 

" Uncle Chlodwig," so ran another line of argu- 
ment," is not a gay bachelor, but a father and grand- 
father, an uncle and cousin times innumerable. Dozens 
of Hohenlohes, besides his own children, depend for 
part of their income, at present or after his death, 
upon the noble old man, and to all these the enormous 
curtailment of salary is nothing short of a calamity." 

A third batch of correspondents bluntly stated that 
" inasmuch as Hohenlohe had consented to accept the 
Chancellorship to please the Emperor, his Majesty was 
in honor bound to make good his pecuniary losses." 

Epistles of this sort kept Augusta Victoria in a tur- 
moil, the Emperor having refused to be disturbed after 
perusing one or two of the kind. 

Thereafter letters postmarked from any city or 
place where the " damned Hohenlohe curmudgeons re- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 255 

side," had to be delivered to the Kaiserin, whether ad- 
dressed to William personally or not. 

The adjutants left rags of that kind by the handful 
morning after morning at the Empress's rooms, and 
her Majesty's morbid curiosity, made her not only 
notice these grievances and accusations, but study 
them, ponder over them. Only once have I seen her 
unconcerned when thus employed, — at the suggestion 
that Uncle Chlodwig needed a big salary, in order to 
live in the style befitting his rank. 

" Uncle Chlodwig a pauper ! " she cried. " That is 
news, indeed; a poor man owning residential palaces 
in several capitals, and castles and country-houses all 
over Germany and in Austria ! " 

" Of course, the statement is ridiculous," said Baron 
von Mirbach ; " but it is a fact, nevertheless, that his 
Grace has been sorely disappointed with respect to his 
Russian properties, or rather his wife's Russian in- 
heritance, the Wittgenstein domains. The law prohib- 
iting foreigners from holding property in Russia has 
forced him to dispose of many miles of territory at 
ruinous prices." 

" I know," said the Empress, " and am glad that 
the Kaiser promised to intervene with the Czar on that 
account. ' Nicky,' I am sure, will arrange matters 
satisfactorily." 

" The Prince's relatives seem to know nothing of 
such an understanding," I remarked. 

" Of course not," replied her Majesty, " for it is a 
state secret which, when I come to think of it, I should 
have more respected. But now that it is out, let me 
add that my husband's promise to secure a favorable 
settlement of those Russian affairs did more than 
all other arguments toward persuading the Prince to 
accept the Chancellorship." 

Poor Nicky ! He was tireless in arranging unlawful 
matters for his relatives and friends. Indeed he worked 
at that game until he himself was made an end of — 



256 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

lawfully 'or unlawfully, no one seems to know at this 
writing. 

On the eve of the day when the Kaiser said at the 
swearing-in of recruits : " by donning the king's coat 
you have become something aristocratic," an unsigned 
letter admonished him in this style: 

" Your Majesty ought really not be so hard on 
Hohenlohe on the salary question, considering that you 
have but to ask your wife's mother about the good 
uses Hohenlohe makes of his wealth. Indeed, if it had 
not been for ' Cousin Chlodwig,' the Duchess Adelaide 
and her children, among them the present German 
Empress, might have gone hungry many a day while 
the Augustenburger was fighting for his throne." 

That evening the princely couple of Meiningen, Duke 
Gunther and the Hereditary Princess of Hohenzollern, 
took supper at court, and to these relatives the Kaiser 
showed the letter. 

" I am thinking about ways and means to stifle this 
new scandal," he explained. " The report — whether 
true or not is immaterial — that the German Empress's 
mother accepted charity from a Hohenlohe must not 
be allowed to spread, and I see but one way to prevent 
it : those salary -grabbers must be appeased ; the income 
of the Emperor's lieutenant must be restored to the 
Chancellor. 

" I am going to grant Hohenlohe an annual augmen- 
tation of his salary, amounting to one hundred thou- 
sand marks out of the imperial emergency fund." 

This was a fund appropriated by the Reichstag for 
the benefit of crippled soldiers, widows and orphans, 
and cf the victims of fire, storm and elementary mis- 
fortunes, and the Kaiser gave one-twentieth part of it 
to his rich and able-bodied uncle! 

Some three months later the Berlin Post, known as 
the organ of the foreign ministries, published a story 
purporting to correct a paragraph printed in an ob- 
scure Socialistic sheet, hinting at a conspiracy between 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 25T 

Kaiser and Chancellor to defraud a public fund. And, 
with the clumsiness that distinguishes the official press, 
the Post^ denied the conspiracy, and then calmly told 
the damning truth, namely, that his Majesty, in recog- 
nition of Prince Hohenlohe's distinguished services, 
his patriotism and disinterestedness, had been " gra- 
ciously pleased to grant him an extra subvention from 
the charity fund which was at his disposal." 

Consequently the Kaiser appeared at supper with a 
darkened brow. He was most UHgracious toward her 
Majesty; and all the ladies, myself included, were 
treated to sarcastic remarks that often approached 
downright rudeness. 

" A thunderstorm is gathering — I wonder who will 
catch it? " remarked my neighbor. At that moment 
the chasseur handed the Kaiser a letter bearing a 
great official seal. 

" There," said he to the Empress, after perusing the 
missive. " Hohenlohe thanks me for my good inten- 
tions, and relinquishes, at the first blast from the 
enemy's camp, the fortune I threw into his lap." 

It's hardly necessary to add that Hohenhole was no 
Prussian junker; a Prussian junker would have hung 
on to the pound of flesh, the product of imperial mal- 
feasance, no matter how many women and children of 
the people would starve that he and his might have 
more than they could digest. 

I have, practically, been an attache of the Prussian 
court all my life and never once heard of an analogous 
case. Our big politicians took all they could get and 
when the Kaiser was graciously pleased to rob a public 
fund to fill their ravenous pouches, there was no smell 
of thievery, only one more whimsical manifestation of 
the Right Divine, or species of organized royal appetite. 

This the Kaiser's mother-in-law. Duchess Adelaide 
of Schleswig, loved to ridicule along with William's 
other pretensions, while on his part William loathed 
the Duchess and knowingly would not have her in his 



258 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

house. But on account of the Kaiser's travel mania, 
her Highness was sometimes able to spend one, two or 
even three weeks at court. 

Among other peculiarities she indulged to excess, was 
the wash craze, not a craze for cleanliness, — for she 
would as soon jump into the fire as immerse herself in 
a tub of water, — but a passion for wetting different 
parts of her body and rubbing them down. 

" I have brought my daily ablution into a system," 
she told me once, " and to that end divided my body 
into twenty sections. The cleansing of each one of 
them requires a complete toilet-set, — ^bowl, pitcher, 
soap-dish and towel." 

That is one of the reasons why her visits were so 
much dreaded in the palace. I have already spoken 
about the inadequacy of the supply of certain requisites 
at our court. Now imagine one of our guests of perhaps 
a dozen or more demanding half a store full of toilet- 
sets for her use alone. Our court marshal groaned and 
the house marshals swore when the Duchess of Schles- 
wig was announced. They had to " find " the toilet 
sets, that is, they must borrow from the royal porcelain 
factory. 

The different wash-sets were placed on a succession 
of tables, and as soon as she arrived at her chambers, 
the Duchess had each pitcher, bowl and soap-dish num- 
bered according to a schedule she carried around every- 
where and guarded as a treasure. Number one is for her 
right foot, number four for her left hip, number seven 
for her right bosom, etc., the even numbers for the left, 
the uneven for the right side of her body. And woe to 
the chambermaid who upset this order of things by plac- 
ing a left side bowl with a right-sided pitcher, which 
might happen easily enough, seeing that most of them 
were of the same color and pattern. 

On one occasion her Majesty had given orders that 
only fourteen toilet-sets be placed in her Highness's 
apartments, somebody having told her that her mother 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 259 

might be altogether weaned of her craze if once she 
could be persuaded to get along with less than the 
accustomed number. 

Mother and daughter inspected the rooms together 
and afterward took dinner in private, her Highness 
withdrawing at an early hour on the plea of indisposi- 
tion. In truth, she burned to see whether her first 
casual observation as to the lack of wash-basins had 
been correct. Miss von Roeder her maid of honor said 
next day that the Duchess, as soon as she was out of 
her Majesty's sight, began to run, arriving at her 
apartment breathless and excited. 

" Help me count, — all of you ! " she shrieked. The 
china sets were counted once, they were counted twice ; a 
third of the prescribed number were missing. 

Duchess Adelaide clutched at her hair. " Whose work 
is this ? " she cried ; " I have had twenty-one bowls 
and pitchers as long as I can think, and my daughter 
would be the last person in the world to deprive me of 
comfort. Who took them away?" and she was about 
to throw herself upon the maids, who were ready to 
prepare her for bed. At that moment a happy thought 
occurred to Roeder. " The Scliloss is full to overflow- 
ing," she said : " probably the court marshal running 
short of stock, took some of our china away." 

Curiously enough, the Duchess accepted this ex- 
planation, and promised to behave, if her four maids, 
von Roeder, her daughter, Feo, and the maid of the 
Princess would lend their wash bowl sets for the night. 
Next morning she ordered two landaus and sent Miss 
von Roeder and her dresser to town to buy more toilet- 
sets. 

" If my son-in-law," she said, " is too poor to provide 
for his guests they must try and augment the short- 
comings of his house," adding, disgustedly : " and that 
calls himself an Emperor ! " 

" As her Highness pronounced these words, she threw 
her sponge into bowl number eleven," reports Roeder, 



260 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

who also volunteered some interesting information re- 
specting the section of the Duchess's anatomy labeled 
XI. 

The seven wash-sets were smuggled into her High- 
ness's apartment in paper boxes to hoodwink the ser- 
vants, and were then placed in the Princess Feo's and 
von Roeder's rooms, so the Empress might not see them 
when she paid her daily visit to the Duchess. 

Adelaide used to indulge in the wash craze twice 
daily, before second breakfast and after supper; some- 
times, on her " critical days,'* she rose as early as half- 
past four to commence operations. One day, the mania 
seized her at 5 a.m. She jumped out of bed and, 
without taking time to put on even a petticoat, ran 
into the corridor, shouting for the girls to bring water. 
The noise awoke the Princess Feo and Roeder, who 
tried to persuade her Highness to go back to bed, but 
the old woman turned upon them with a flood of invec- 
tives that would have done honor to a fish-wife. When, 
finally, the overseer of the corridor arrived, he found 
three half-naked women engaged in a fierce battle, the 
two younger ones trying to force the other to re-enter 
the apartment, while she clamored for hot water at the 
top of her voice. " Water, water, I am dying for 
water! Only nine pitchers are filled! Give me twelve 
pitchers of hot water ! " 

In the Empress's room conversation once turned 
upon the subject of complexions. '^ To what, do you 
think, does Feo ascribe her muddied skin? " asked the 
Duchess in her usual blunt manner, and all of us began 
to look sharply to our needlework. Her Highness re- 
peated the question, and then answered it herself: 
" Because," she grinned — " that is Feo's explanation — 
because I won't let her sleep at night, and awaken her 
early in the morning. Now I should like to know 
whether I am not entitled to my daughter's company 
while engaged in my toilet.? Roeder and the girls have 
to sit up wliile I wash, but Feo is allowed to go to bed, 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 261 

or remain abed, where I visit her from time to time for 
a snatch of talk. I mean to entertain her, as well as 
myself, and this ungrateful child says I am muddling 
her complexion." 

If for some physical or mental reasons the ablutions 
fail to quiet her Highness, she has paroxysms of rage 
that seriously threaten her surroundings. Then she 
smashes furniture, howls like mad and fells upon her 
maids if she gets the chance. As a rule, though, her 
girls are selected with a view to bodily strength, and 
it has been asserted that they give tit for tat whenever 
their mistress essays to maltreat them. It would not 
be the first time that a royal lunatic was subjected to 
violence. George III of England was soundly thrashed 
by his valet, whenever, during his intermittent fits of 
lunacy, the latter got a chance to even up things. For 
every fistcuif the man had got when his master was in 
seeming possession of his senses, he kicked George 
thrice when the latter was strait-jacketed. Such is 
human nature. 

On one of her visits, the Duchess brought in her 
retinue two newly-engaged maids ; they were to do night 
service for the first time at the Neues Palais, while 
another set had to attend her Highness's morning 
wash. Whether these girls had not been properly pre- 
pared for the ordeal, or, performed their work badly, 
I do not know; there was an awful rumpus toward 
twelve o'clock, and next morning it was learned that 
the girls had run from the building, never stopping 
until commanded to do so on pain of death by a 
sentinel. 

Then they threw themselves on their knees, and 
screamed for mercy. The poor creatures thought they 
were in a Bedlam : their royal mistress, finding herself 
short one pitcher of water, had suddenly metamor- 
phosed into a fiend incarnate, had assailed them biting, 
scratching and throttling. 

Miss von Roeder alone knows how to manage the 



262 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Duchess. She is very energetic, strong-minded and 
strong-limbed, and capable of enforcing orders at all 
hazards. Once when the Duchess Adelaide expressed a 
desire to have her groom in the parlor, Roeder replied 
with her usual " No, thank you." 

" But I will have John in the salon, or anywhere 
else, if I see fit. Am I not the Duchess of Schleswig- 
Holstein?" 

" I know," answered Roeder doggedly, " but that 
notwithstanding, your Highness will not entertain a 
hostler where I am." 

" You impertinent cat," cried the Duchess. " You 
think you can give me the end of your tongue because 
that tu-penny son-in-law of mine encourages you." 
At the same time she carried a chair to the window, 
opened it and placing one foot on the sill, added: 
*' Now will you let me have John because, unless you 
ring for him at once, I will jump out." 

Roeder never quivered. Nonchalantly waving her 
hand toward the window, she said : " Jump, your High- 
ness, and I will enjoy a holiday. I will have my salary 
for life, you know." Her Highness did jump, but onto 
the floor. " Damn you," she hissed, " I would rather 
live forever than do you a good turn." 

There is no denying the Duchess was at times rather 
eccentric, yet in some respects she showed good judg- 
ment. For instance, she always referred to her son-in- 
law as " that d pig-dog, Kaiser." 

And how she loved the Prussians ! Here follows a 
specimen of her table talk on that subject: 

" At the Princess of Courland's," I heard her say 
to the Kaiser at luncheon one day, " I saw the Countess 
Sobieska and recognized her at once as an old friend, 
though I haven't seen her for thirty years and more. 

" My dear, I said to her, I think I first met you at 
the Empress Eugenie's in that dear Paris, before those 
confounded Prussians drove her from her throne as 
they did my husband." 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 263 

" And why, pray, did you permit your two daughters 
to marry confounded Prussians?" demanded Sobieska. 

" Because at the time we were too confounded poor 
to pitch the pig-dogs out of doors," I told her, and, 
(raising her voice) " that's God's truth." 

It may have been — but William didn't enjoy the 
story any better for that. 



CHAPTER XVI 

We heard " The Day's " rumblings about the Palace 
long before the murder of the Arch-Duke was actually 
consummated. The death sentence had been passed 
when he brought his wife to Berlin and the latter had 
been found wanting in humility. 

" The upstart gives herself airs like one born in the 
purple," said the Kaiserin. 

"Let her — while she is alive," smiled William, one 
of his sardonic smiles. " I promise thee, Sophie shall 
never be Empress of Austria." 

" But I understood that you supported those prepos- 
terous claims of the Bohemian baggage," insisted her 
Majesty. 

" Politics, my dear ! The last time I was in Rome, 
I promised the Pope the Eternal City and the restora- 
tion of the States of the Church. Will he get them.? " 

At that moment Count Moltke, chief of the General 
Staff, was announced. 

The Kaiser drew him at once into a window em- 
brasure, where the Crown Prince happened to be whiling 
away the hours of enforced attendance at court with 
little Bassewitz, the same who, by and by, became his 
sister-in-law, on the left hand. 

" Francis Ferdinand is impossible — a stubborn, 
bigoted, priest-ridden ass. I can't work with him," said 
Wilhelm to Moltke. 

" I told you so, father," chimed in young William, 
" but you insisted upon making a holy show of him. 
Having proclaimed him your ' sweet brother-in-arms,' 
the ' friend of your soul ' — now you purpose to get rid 
of the pest. But how.? " 

" Leave that to me," answered the Kaiser curtly and 
turned to whisper to Moltke. 

264 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 265 

But the Crown Prince was not to be squelched. He 
interrupted the Emperor a second time. " Send for 
Heeringen " (meaning the General of that name) he 
advised. " Our Moltke is far too ladylike for that sort 
of business." And he drew his hand, like the blade of 
a knife, across his throat, while guffawing noisily at his 
" joke." 

General Moltke attempted to say something, but the 
Kaiser cut him short. " Perhaps Willie is right. Heer- 
ingen shall be sent for." 

And the Chief of the mightiest war machine the 
world had ever seen up to that time was dismissed 
like a footman. 

As Moltke withdrew, the Kaiser called after him: 
"The Empress is looking for Bassewitz. Take her 
along." 

"There, she kept this corner warm for you," said 
William, Jr., drawing the Kaiser onto the seat next 
to him. A little later, the pair was joined by Heer- 
ingen, the same who achieved looter's laurels during the 
war. ^ And when the three men rejoined the ladies, no 
conscientious insurance agent would have taken a one 
hundred-dollar risk on Francis Ferdinand's life — pro- 
vided he had been able to read their thoughts. 

A few days afterward, Crown Princess Cecilia tried 
to curry favor with her father-in-law my making her 
oldest boy memorize the statistics relating to the 
Kaiser's record as a hunter. The smallest little Willie 
began very well and mamma was very proud, showing 
him off before the assembled court. 

" Grandpa has killed so and so many hares, and so 
and so many roes, etc., etc.," began the child, saying 
his lesson with evident fear and trepidation. 

Of course everybody sat up and smiled benignly at 
the singing of the Kaiser's praises and at Cecilia's and 
the boy's triumph, the maiden effort of a king-to-be, 
we fondly imagined. But for once William had no 
use for incense burned on the altar of his vanity. 



266 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Without looking at the Crown Princess, he repri- 
manded the little one's governor in this summary 
fashion : 

" That will do exceedingly well for the nursery ; 
splendid thing to develop memory. But just at present 
I am dealing with more interesting and even more 
important figures. 

" I find that my sublime ancestor, Frederick the 
Great " — and the Kaiser bowed three times — " gained 
his famous victories, on the average, at a cost of eleven 
per cent, of his effectives. 

" But that was way back in the eighteenth century. 
If I decide to sound the bugle-call now-a-days — " 

The Kaiser paused to view his audience, and, to be 
sure, all depending on his good pleasure tried to meet 
his searching eye with expressions of enthusiasm. For 
to be at all lukewarm on such occasions, meant disgrace. 
Hence most of the officers began playing with their 
sword hilts. 

" When I command my armies to move against the 
miscreants that oppose my will," continued William, 
raising his voice, " I am afraid the percentage of loss of 
life will be vastly higher. Salm ! " 

He turned abruptly to General of Horse Prince 
Salm-Horstmar, one of our chief fire-eaters. - 

" Salm, the statistics we have worked out," demanded 
William. 

The adjutant general handed him a typewritten 
statement, bearing the Kaiser's ceremonial signature. 
William seemed to take special pride reading it aloud. 

I append a copy of the document, as subsequently 
issued, by the general staff. 

" From this it would seem that one-third of my 
armies must die for Kaiser and Fatherland," lectured 
William, pointing to items in the last column of the 
statement. " Hence, if I send nine million men to the 
front, six millions only may be expected to return 
home." 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 267 
Victims of the Great Battles, 19th and 20th Century 

Forces 

Battles. Year. Engaged. Losses. 

tf 'Pf^« 1813 500,000 U0,000 

^"^^^^^ J905 624,000 138,000 

t^^^^. 1870 320,000 *122,000 

Borodme 1812 246,000 80,000 

Waterloo 1815 1^2,000 65,000 

^*f^^ 1809' 290,000 63,000 

^^^'! .••• 1905 355,000 63,000 

Koemggratz ... 1866 435,000 54,000 

?f^'^^^ 1813 300,000 50,000 

^^7^^ 1877 163,000 50,000 

^^^^^ 1807 158,000 49,000 

^*|7^ •: 1809 148,000 48,000 

* including prisoners. 

The master death-dealer once more surveyed us, who 
were standing and sitting around him. Though all the 
men present were soldiers and all the women and girls 
had either father, husband or brothers and cousins in 
the army, there was no perceptible diminishing of 
enthusiasm. 

He piled on the agony a little more. 
" This one-third," he went on, " our losses of say, 
one million out of every three, leaves the latest triumphs 
of my Essen and Wilhelmshaven establishments out 'of 
the reckoning though. I expect to have plenty of Krupp 
guns turned against me. My death factory, as you 
know, sells to all the world." 

A cruel smile played about the Kaiser's hard mouth 
as he trumpeted forth the sentence, which meant men- 
tion in the Roll of Honor for millions of men. And, 
as if to emphasize his determination of mass-killing, he 
pushed out his slanting chin. 

"But what matters it?" he demanded in a tone of 
triumph, " since, according to other statistics I gath- 
ered, the vanquished always pay the bigger price, from 
twenty-five to thirty per cent, more.? So if we lose, 



268 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

which the Good German God forbid — one million men, 
one million three hundred and fifty thousand of the 
French must bite the dust! With their steadily de- 
creasing birthrate, how long do you suppose can they 
stand that racket?" 

The above were only a few of many similar indica- 
tions that " The Day " was scheduled to loom big in 
the near future, while the Kaiser's restlessness and 
mental excitement increased proportionately — a thing 
no one had ever thought remotely possible. 

In particular he was fotrever in conference with 
someone. General of the Army Moltke, or some Under- 
chief of the General Staff, the Minister of War, or 
the Chancellor. And not infrequently a " confounded 
Socialist " was led up back stairs to be interviewed by 
one of William's confidants — ^with William eavesdrop- 
ping behind the arras. But as to " Reds," generally, 
the Kaiser damned them as lustily as ever in our, i.e. 
his circles. Just the same, he let Bethmann-HoUweg 
dicker with them for votes and for their influence with 
the " working rabble.'* 

And there were numerous confabs with representa- 
tives of the liberal, clerical and radical parties. All 
and everybody was being appeased or threatened, 
cajoled or made a doormat of to help launch " The 
Day." 

The Kaiser shouted: " I command Krupp," (indicat- 
ing the wish to talk with the head of the Factory of 
Death) so often and so persistently that one of his 
several phone operators connected with Essen the mo- 
ment the Kaiser opened his mouth. 

During the first two or three years of the war I read 
in the London and Paris press dozens of articles, big 
and small, dealing with a certain Berlin or Potsdam 
Crown Council, whether or not such a one had been held 
at such and such a time. I am even told that there are 
pamphlets and whole books pro and con. 

One might as well argue for or against yesterday's 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 269 

sunrise. Crown Councils indeed! — what was a Crown 
Council more or less in those pre-war days? 

Its constituent members, the royal princes, the 
ministers of state, the field marshals, the chiefs of 
the Kaiser's military and naval households, the com- 
manding generals, etc., were either in constant attend- 
ance on William, or within easy call, while the rest, 
ex-rrinisters of state and other high officials on half 
pay, hovered near, hoping for possible re-establish- 
ment if, perchance, they stroked William just right. 
And " old Henckel " — one of the chief councilors — 
you couldn't drive away! 

What, then, prevented William the Sudden, from 
calling a Crown Council at any hour, day or night.? 

I heard of Crown Councils held in trains, on lonely 
Peacock's Island, at Rominten and various other out- 
of-the-way hunting boxes, royal and otherwise, — any 
old place would do when the Kaiser wanted to cloak the 
imposition of his will ^ )on the people by the semblance 
of constitutional endorsement. 

As the Spanish King, sacked by the great Napoleon, 
at all times had a monk handy to grant him absolution 
when guilty of sin, so the Kaiser turned the Crown 
Council to good account while the world war was hatch- 
ing. For the first time he wanted backing — : presto, 
the Crown Council out-dictatored the dictator 1 

The Imperial Charger had been led to the water: — 
" give him drink," commanded William the Crown 
Council. 

As everybody knows, William began his career by 
trying to push his father from the throne before and 
during those miserable and painful 100 days, the agony 
of which appalled even the Hohenzollerns' most out- 
spoken enemies. And he had been pushing and crowd- 
ing persons and affairs ever since. 

Still, at the brink of the precipice, there were mo- 
ments when the blind staggers of possible disaster laid 
a heavy hand upon his shoulder. 



270 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

The Berlin court was amazed and moved to irreverent 
laughter by the exalted opinions which a solitary Ameri- 
can writer expressed about the Crown Prince's talents, 
his diligence and sound judgment. As we know, and of 
course ought to know best, William, Jr., is quite an 
ordinary, rather " horsey gent," who, shorn of rank and 
environment, might have made a passable lightning 
rod agent if he fell down on the job of salesman in a 
shoe store. But he was pre-eminent in this: 

If William, Sr., needed " bucking" up, William, Jr., 
was the one to do the bucking. 

As an American-born countess, belonging to the 
Munich court set, put it: " My, he does ' sass ' his old 
man ! " 

And if, perchance, the ICaiser showed backbone — a 
commodity not much in evidence in his family circle of 
late years — the Crown Prince had a host of auxiliaries 
to help him. 

As already remarked in passing there was " old 
Henckel." (Count Guy Henckel) very anxious to aug- 
ment his enormous wealth by fair means or foul. In 
the summer of 1914, he achieved the ripe old age of 
eighty-four, and as he quaintly said, " had no time 
left for moral or judicial niceties." 

If he was to get those Belgian or French coal fields 
and iron mines which the Kaiser had promised liim for 
his lifelong support, financial and otherwise, why, " The 
Day " must not be " cake tomorrow." 

Count Zeppelin, since dead, played on the same 
string. He was getting on in years, and before he 
" kicked the bucket," he wanted to " lay London and 
Paris .and possibly New York in ashes " by his latest 
machine — always his latest. 

And there was Gwinner and Rathenau and a hundred 
and one other industrial and financial barons with or 
without handles to their names. 

Cecilia's fortune and William, Jr.'s savings (what 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 271 

there was of such), were bound up with those of the 
Fatherland's merchant princes. 

If war meant larger dividends, as the Frankfort 
nabobs predicted, why, the Kaiser must be prodded to 
say " go " now, particularly, as Little Willie was build- 
ing a new home for himself at Potsdam — one of those 
enormous hideous German palaces, which Thackeray 
was wont to shed tears over. 

The spoils of war, I heard the Crown Prince say more 
than once, might be used to construct the marble-lined 
swimming pool, as large as a Swiss lake, which he was 
crazy about, they might build miles of greenhouses and 
buy tons of articles de virtu; as well as unrivalled 
Napoleon souvenirs — " hence we must have war." 

And of course, there was the Princes' Trust: Pless, 
Hohenlohe and Max Furstenberg, all of them longing 
for muddled water to catch gold fish. Their giant fi- 
nancial Utopias bewildered and charmed the Kaiser; 
control of the Bank of England, of the New York Stock 
Exchange and of gambling houses the world over. 
Lovely, eh.'* 

After the Austrian Archduke incident, the Kaiser's 
activities as war promotor grew more direct, more sys- 
tematic and more wide-spread. His daily cable tolls 
to America, alone would have kept a good-sized family 
going for a month. 

" Bernstorff must know what I think of that affair," 
he kept saying at luncheon, dinner and supper. Or 
more often : 

" Now to fool those idiotic Yanks. John tells me 
they love to swallow the bait I hand them." 

And on such occasions, Rieger couldn't fetch the pad 
of telegraph blanks quickly enough. 

When Francis Ferdinand had been a doomed man for 
a week or ten days (of course he didn't know it, poor 
chap), the Crown Prince one evening interrupted a 
poker game in his bachelor quarters at the Marble 



272 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAlSER 

Palace. " Get me Huelsen, on the double quick," he 
said to his adjutant, throwing down his cards. 

" Huelsen," he ordered in his most imperious style 
after the connection had been effected, " I want you to 
be put on ' Diplomacy ' on Wednesday at the very 
latest." 

There was considerable buzzing, Huelsen replying no 
doubt, but Willie hung up the receiver. The director 
of the royal playhouse had his orders and the Crown 
Prince wasn't interested in what the director might 
have to say on the subject. 

Not to miss one of their five constitutional meals a 
day — five, count 'em ! — the imperial family had tea and 
sandwiches served to them between acts at the theater. 
During the first act of " Diplomacy," William, Jr., had 
talked to the Kaiser off and on, commenting particu- 
larly on the woman spy, and during the repast he con- 
tinued his " illuminating talk," as he termed his 
vaporings. 

The Kaiser seemed to pay more attention to Willie 
than usual, affecting the thoughtful mien which char- 
acterizes most of his portraits. Suddenly be put down 
his cup and beckoned to me. 

" Baroness," he whispered, as, standing behind his 
chair, I bent over him, " make haste and call up Daisy. 
Tell her to start for Berlin instantly. No, the mid- 
night train will do," (it was then 9 o'clock). " I have 
got a mission for her : special ambassadress. Make her 
mouth water, you know." 

" But," I boldly suggested, " wouldn't the princess 
be more eager still if his Majesty in person did the 
talking? " 

" Of course she would, any pretty woman would," — 
I was being backed by William, Jr., who probably, had 
a favor to ask of papa. " Call her yourself, father," 
he added. 

"And have the whole castle know what's what.?" 
demanded the Kaiser. " Mind your own business, 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 273 

Willie, and you Baroness — '* He was going to say 
something rude, but at that moment the operator 
signalled that the line to Pless was clear. I hurriedly 
left the table to go to the booth. (All wires and lines, 
favored by the Kaiser, had to be abandoned by opera- 
tors and officials the moment William indicated that he 
desired to speak himself or by deputy.) 

I was explaining his Majesty's orders to the Princess 
Pless for the second time, when William, Jr., burst in. 
" Tell her, never mind court dress — travelling outfit, 
tailormade and half a dozen semi-evening gowns will 
do." 

" But what does it all mean? " asked Daisy, when I 
had transcribed the order to her. 

"A hurried trip to her old country," whispered 
William, Jr., into my ear. " But secrecy, dead secrecy, 
Kaiser's most stringent orders. We will have her ears, 
tell her, if she breathes a word even to her lap dog." 

Daisy, Princess Pless, born Mary Theresa Olivia 
Cornwallis West, of Ruthin Castle, England, was then 
forty-one years old and no longer the great beauty 
over whom the illustrated papers raved when she was a 
girl at home. And though her husband's royal estate 
at Pless is one of the finest on the continent and though 
the castle is set in romantic and even poetic environ- 
ment, more than twenty years of German life had coars- 
ened her in looks as well as in manner. German royalty, 
after which she patterned, is rough-shod, over-feeding 
and over-weening. Titled attendants, like myself, are 
treated with sarcasm at court ; the ordinary run of ser- 
vants is used worse than beasts of burden. 

" Why shout at the man," asked the Prince of Wales, 
afterwards King Edward, when on a visit to Berlin, he 
heard his imperial nephew bawl at a lackey ; " he isn't 
deaf, is he? " 

" You don't understand, uncle ! It's customary here 
to rave at servants, so they know who is the master." 

In May, 1914, we find Wilhelm's special ambassadress 



274j secret life OF THE KAISER 

in London town. He had asked Princess Pless to try 
to persuade Lord Kitchener and Lord Roberts to come 
to Germany for a stay at her liouse, and she did his 
bidding, right or wrong, giving no thought to possible 
consequences, I dare say. 

People have exaggerated the Kaiser's reputation for 
gallantry. In the early years of his reign, when at last 
free to lay his hands on millions, he indulged in a suc- 
cession of mistresses, it is true, but the anonymous 
letter scandal and his growing intimacy with the Eulen- 
burg coterie cured him of that weakness. For the last 
ten years and more women have merely served him as 
so many " Countesses Castigliones." Their ladyships 
were made to believe that the king's crust was better 
than their lord's dainties and were flattered into the 
conviction that special privileges had been conferred 
upon them and that under all-highest guidance 
diplomacy was to be their oyster. 

The acts of " diplomacy " assigned to them were 
spying at home or abroad, and the dirtier the work for 
the Kaiser's greater glory, the nobler it was in the 
eyes of true patriots! And the lady spy's reward.'' 
If successful: Royal decorations for herself, titles, 
advancement for husband, cousins, uncles or sons! If 
found out: Banishment from court and society. 

Wilhelm's idea, superinduced by the play of Diplo- 
macy, was to make Kitchener and Roberts, England's 
leading military men, prisoners of war in the midst of 
peace. . . . He intended to lure them on a hunting 
trip into the very heart of the Central Empires, midway 
between Berlin and Vienna; there to sequestrate them 
in the lonely castle of Pless, without reach of post, 
telegraph or phone. 

" Impossible," you say, " there are no such wild and 
wooly places in Germany." Yes, there are: Kaiser- 
made, for when WUhelm stays at a country house, the 
entire postal and telegraph services are suspended for 
all other inmates, and nothing short of the all-highest 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 275 

"I command," makes the post come forward and sets 
the phone and wires working. There can be no manner 
of doubt that if Lord Kitchener had accepted the 
Kaiser's invitation to meet him at Pless in the last 
weeks of July, 1914, Wilhelm would have managed to 
isolate him from London and the British Embassy in 
Berlin, for the time he wanted him isolated, as thor- 
oughly as if the future British Minister of War had 
been on a visit to Mars — him and Lord Roberts, who 
was also invited " as a surprise " for I^ord Kitchener. 

Expecting many callers on the Kaiser's business, 
Daisy, after a short stay at the Savoy, leased a fur- 
nished flat in Jermyn street, Piccadilly, a unique estab- 
lishment, for none of the servants spoke a word of 
English. Perhaps the circumstance that the same 
apartment has frequently housed William, Jr., when in 
London incognito, accounts for that. 

Such were the London safeguards. But what about 
the proposed victims? 

The Kaiser intended to decree a " real rest " for his 
friends ; " absolutely nothing to worry them ! " The 
chase, agreeable company, lordly splendor and his 
(Wilhelm's) boon companionship would make their 
days and evenings a delight. And there would be new 
war inventions, shown by special favor, to interest 
them: Krupp would send cannon and Wilhelmshaven 
models of submarines. There would be professors to 
talk economics, old saber-tasches, great nobles, indus- 
trial barons and pretty women. 

At the same time, unknown to his British guests, the 
Kaiser would continue his mischief-making activities 
through a thousand and one channels ; royal scamps 
like Tino, over-rated popinjays like Buelow, pleaders 
for organized dishonesty like Bethmann-Hollweg, and 
through diplomatic devilry of the John Bernstorff sort ; 
through his paid and voluntary press agents in all 
parts of the world besides. And he would be at it until 
the time was ripe for his war provoking ultimata to 



276 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Belgrade, Petrogrard and Paris. Then, after creating 
" a military necessity that knows no law," his English 
guests would become his prisoners, " prisoners of war," 
and Wilhelm could snap his fingers at Downing Street. 
For England's " contemptible little army " would then 
be headless, its organizing and fighting spirits would 
be in his, the Kaiser's hands. 

Such was the plot. 

But Lord Kitchener was not the man to submit to 
treatment of that sort. While as to telegrams sent by 
him, or addressed to him, he might be deceived for a 
little while, yet eventually he would become suspicious 
about the delay of his mail and would insist upon phon- 
ing to his Berlin Embassy. Besides, he would object 
to being cooped up in the castle and would venture 
out of his own account. 

Undoubtedly he would, but what chance would he 
have had, surrounded and spied upon by Germans? 
For the Kaiser would see to it that no English speak- 
ing servant was at the castle or in the neighborhood, and 
the hosts, other guests and the entourage, while pre- 
tending to be most eager to accede to the English 
lords' slightest wishes, would do nothing to assist them. 
Far from it, they would help to thwart Kitchener's 
and Lord Roberts' every effort to get an inkling of the 
true situation. 

And if the English with accustomed energy, never- 
theless ventured to break through the charmed circle, 
why there was the last and not unconventional resort 
of " pinking" them ! Accidents happen at the best 
regulated " shoots " while an Imperial chase brought 
into action, besides the numerous guests, scores of pro- 
fessional huntsmen and foresters, gendarmes, detectives 
and soldiers. Nothing easier then, but to arrange for 
a stray shot at persons so conspicuous as Kitchener 
or Roberts. The very multitude of possible delin- 
quents would forestall discovery, for there are always 
poachers among the small army of beaters. Hence 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 277 

obvious explanations and excuses 1 And, if it seemed 
undesirable to employ a hired assassin or uniformed 
underling, why, some courtier or army officer would 
" oblige." For a silver star or cross set with seed pearl, 
this sort of gentry would do worse than wound a man 
to order. 

Of course the shot must not kill — that would cause 
too much uproar. It was intended only to wound the 
victim so as to lay him up for some time. 

The Kaiser's ambassadress had no sooner taken pos- 
session of her flat, than she rang up a certain Hay- 
market stenographer's office, and ordered a " typist- 
woman for four o'clock sharp, not a minute later." 

We will let the " typist-woman " tell her own story. 

" I was there at the stroke of the clock. A German 
footman stood facing the elevator, and beckoned me 
to follow him. He pointed to a chair near the window 
in what looked like a boudoir-library, and there I sat 
fully twenty-eight minutes before the elevator gave 
another sign of life. Then there was a commotion and 
I heard a high pitched voice call out something which 
sounded like: 'Has the typist-woman come.?' 

" When her German Highness was at last comfort- 
able in a high-baicked chair, a cushion under her, 
another at her back and two more at her elbows and 
a small eiderdown laprobe over her knees and slippered 
feet, she turned upon my unworthy self, and queried in 
English. 'The typist-woman .f* ' 

" ' As you see,' I replied. 

" ' Well, I have some important letters and very 
little time before dinner.' 

" ' My dear Lord Roberts,' the princess began her 
dictation. She leaned back and thought long and 
earnestly. There were several beginnings, crossed out 
as soon as put on paper. But when the opening lines 
were once settled, her Highness proceeded quickly, and 
when I read the finished letter over to her she was quite 
satisfied. I wondered much at so much weighing of 



278 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

words and phrases. Surely a grande dame ought to 
have had no difficulty in penning a simple invitation to 
the chase, for that was the long and short of our labors. 
She wanted Lord Roberts to be a guest at her Castle 
Pless, and asked him to fix a date for his early visit. 
She would be pleased to have him in the next few weeks. 
There would be good shooting for his Lordship, and she 
took it upon herself to promise that ' Majesty ' would 
be of the party. ' What a happy coincidence,' she 
fluttered, ' quite informal of course, such a meeting of 
the youngest and oldest War-Lord ! ' To her personal 
knowledge there was no more sincere admirer of Roberts 
than the ' all-highest.' How they would revel in 
recollections of the 'Afghanistan and Indian cam- 
paigns, etc.,' and more of that sort. 

" The princess stopped suddenly to ask : ' How 
much will that make? ' 

" ' About a page in type.' 

" ' Gracious me. Lord Roberts will not read a type- 
written letter, I am sure. It must come sort of spon- 
taneously from me. Let me see what kind of a hand 
you write.' 

" I passed over a scribbled specimen, but her High- 
ness said it wouldn't do at all, as it did not resemble her 
own writing in the least. 

" ' Maybe there is a girl at our office who can imitate 
your writing.' I ventured. The princess called to her 
maid, who fetched pencil and writing pad and a news- 
paper from which to copy. As hers is the average Eng- 
lish high school girl's hand I said there would be no 
difficulty finding someone to write the letters in the 
same style. 

" ' Very well, then. Let's go on with our work,' 
said the Highness, and dictated a letter to Lord Kitch- 
ener similar to the one addressed to Lord Roberts. 

" The Kitchener letter was even more pressing, more 
full of assurances of how much the all-highest would 
appreciate the chance-meeting and opportunity for 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 279 

exchanging views and dissipating prejudices. All her 
own doings of course, — ' Majestj^ ' knew nothing at all 
about it. But William was so good and dear a friend of 
hers, he would come whenever she wanted him, and the 
presence of Lord Kitchener at the house was the great- 
est attraction that could possibly happen. 

" As in the case of Lord Roberts, there was passing 
allusion to the disappointment felt at Potsdam that his 
Lordship had found it inconvenient to accept the all- 
highest invitation a month previous, but Majesty was 
not offended, certainly not, only the more eager to 
meet the hero of Khartum. 

" The maid fetched an assortment of fancy letter- 
heads, with initials surmounted by a crown, and her 
Highness selected some that had a touch of intimacy 
about them: a pet name set in a scroll. 

" ' These will do for their Lordships,' she said. * And 
mind I must have the letters at seven to catch the early 
country mail.' " 

The " typist-woman" continued: " When I returned 
in the evening, I was conducted right up to her High- 
ness in the library. It was quite a small room. When 
her Highness beckoned to a gentleman sitting in the 
window niche to come and look at the letters, the place 
seemed quite full. 

" The man's face, suddenly popping up under the 
electric hanging globe, gave me a start. 

" Surely, I had seen the face before, but I could 
not place it for the moment, though the title of Baron, 
twice repeated, sounded familiar enough. His Lordship 
was in elaborate evening dress — too elaborate for an 
Englishman and, moreover, both he and the Princess 
spoke in German. Therefore I did not understand what 
they were saying, except that they referred to the 
letters. Also there was a large amount of ' Kaisers ' 
mixed in their lingo. The Baron nodded approvingly 
while he read the letter to Lord Roberts. Then he 
addressed me directly in English : ' Of course, you can 



280 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

get a typewritten copy from your notes, can't you ? ' 
Noticing that the Princess nodded assent, I did like- 
wise. ' Send it to 9 Carlton House Terrace, marking 
a " K " in the corner of the envelope,' said the stranger, 
handing me half a crown. 

" Unconsciously, no doubt, he continued to speak 
English when he turned to the Princess, saying: 'I'll 
send the copy to Majesty — a little masterpiece this. 
I always maintained when a smart woman, like your 
Highness, turns to diplomacy, she beats us poor profes- 
sionals hollow.' 

" Now I recognized him : Baron Kuhlmann of the 
German Embassy, the most consummate liar of the 
diplomatic corps. A newspaper girl friend had once 
pointed him out to me : ' Always good copy — if the 
editor could only believe a word he said,' had been Win- 
nie's laughing comment. 

" Daisy next handed the Baron the letter addressed 
to Lord Kitchener. He looked bewildered and, as he 
read on, his face fell. ' But, your Highness,' he remon- 
strated, ' to post both letters at the same time would 
never do.' Followed a string of German. 

" The princess replied : ' But, I am sure, I followed 
the all-highest instructions.' 

" ' No doubt,' bowed his Lordship, * but as it hap- 
pened, the Kaiser didn't reckon with the possibility 
that both gentlemen might suggest different dates for 
their coming, and what then? We want them both 
together at the castle.' 

" Her Highness looked annoyed. ' What are we to 
do ? ' she queried. 

" ' Post the letter to Lord Roberts tonight, and if 
he accepts for a certain date, we'll suggest that date 
in the letter to Lord Kitchener, which should be held 
until Lord Roberts' answ^er arrives.' 

" ' Very well, at your risk. Baron,' nodded her High- 
ness and dismissed me. Three or four days later the 
telephone called me to the Princess's flat once more. I 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 281 

was desired to have the letter to Lord Kitchener re- 
written under the current date." 

But Lord Kitchener and Roberts were either too wily, 
or thought too little of the Kaiser to swallow the bait, 
for both sent their regrets. 

The Kaiser had just remarked: " If I catch Kitch- 
ener, I had better take Roberts, too. The pair of them 
my prisoners, means clapping the kibosh on British 
military organization and action," when Baron Kuhl- 
mann's cipher dispatch, announcing the failure of 
Daisy's embassy, came rattling over the wire. 

What he said after learning of the failure of his 
scheme is unfit for publication, and the punishment that 
fitted the crime was at once visited upon the " clumsy " 
envoy. 

The official press got leave to roundly abuse " Daisy " 
for the impertinence of being an Englishwoman 
birth, and later, when her Highness's mother, M 
Comwallis West, courted trouble in London by fall : 
in love with a soldier boy, young enough to be her grai 
son, that yam, too, was given the widest possih' 
publicity. You cannot fail to perceive : there was noth- 
ing too small, or perhaps small enough, for the Kaiser, 
and, above all things, he tried to live up to his concep- 
tion of a gentleman. 

I speak here only of things bearing on life at the 
palace and on the Kaiser's personal doings and con- 
cerns — in the spring and early summer of 1914 war- 
like forebodings multiplied at court. There was always 
talk of battles by land and sea, in the air and under the 
ocean. 

"Nicky" ( Russia), "Victor" (Italy), " Tino » 
( Greece) ,N " George " (England), were names flying 
about the table and drawing rooms, not unfrequently 
coupled with ugly epithets. And Wilhelm flashed the 
red lantern of his bloodthirsty imagination on the most 
innocent subjects. 

" My pistols at the heart of England (if need be) 



282 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

Heligoland and Antwerp — German Antwerp," he used 
to declaim, at the same time assuring himself, his gen- 
erals and the court that England wouldn't dare oppose 
his will. " If George is a fool, why of course he must 
stand the consequences." 

" Really, coming to think of it, I would like Windsor 
Castle for a summer resort," he declared on one such 
occasion. 

" And you will let me have the Isle of Man, won't 
you? " said Prince Eitel-Fritz, lounging near. 

" Sure my boy, make a note of it," Wilhelm nodded 
imperiously to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs. 

One evening in May when the court was *' graciously 
commanded " to see " Tannhauser " for the one hun- 
dred and fifteenth time, or thereabouts, the Kaiser spent 
TYinof of the time reading a pamphlet, having withdrawn 
i rear of his box. Toward the end of the first act, 
)erlains went the rounds of all courtiers and 
s of their Majesties at the opera house, whisper- 
The Kaiser wants to see you at tea. Go at once 
iL viiv; salon." 

As a consequence a goodly company assembled. They 
found the Kaiser very much excited, sort of transfused 
with the rehgious exaltation he usually affected on 
Sunday mornings. 

" A curious thing happened this evening," he told 
the company. " Among the new books arrived I found 
this (showing a slender volume bound in yellow), 
and though it was at the bottom of the bunch it 
caught my eye right away, magnet like. 

" And this I found on page one hundred, exactly 
one hundred — mark that ladies and gentlemen." 

And turning to page one hundred, he read in a 
loud and excited voice: 

" ' The Emperor is about to enter upon the happiest 
period of his life, so rich in unprecedented success. 
For the greatness and glory of the common Fatherland, 
he will make greater efforts and more gigantic sacri- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 283 

fices than ever. And his efforts, as is fit, will be 
crowned with success such as no one ever dared hope 
for. Germany, through the Kaiser's efforts, will arise 
from the impending crisis new born, revitalized, 
stronger and mightier. Indeed in the end the Kaiser 
might choose to wear a triple crown if he did not prefer 
the German diadem. 

" ' And as to general prosperity and well-being, Ger- 
man commerce and industry will rule the world, — all 
the world's commerce and industry will be ours.' '* 

The audience was quite dumbfounded at the surprise 
sprung. " I don't know how true this prophet says," 
added William, " but you may remember a certain sen- 
tence from Maeterlinck : ' We recognize the past, — 
another brain curvature and we ma}^ see the future, for 
what will happen tomorrow, is there today.' " 

And striking an even more dramatic pose, the Kaiser 
almost shouted : " There have always been favored ones 
blessed with that future-curvature of Maeterlincks's, 
that is, the gift of prophecy. 

"And now I say good-bye to you all," concluded 
William — " within half an hour I will be on the way to 
Kiel to take a much needed rest on my yacht. And 
while communing with the sun or stars above, on the 
bridge of the Hohenzollern, I will be thinking of this," 
shaking the book he held in his hand. " In the mean- 
while you must buy this book, read this prophecy, pon- 
der on it and spread it among the people, that the 
people may be prepared for the great deeds their 
Kaiser is on the eve of performing for the greatness of 
the Fatherland and the spread of Gennan Kultur." 

Outwardly everything continued as before. The 
same ceremonials, the same superficial pomp garnishing 
real penury, the same private and festive gatherings, 
only all and everything and everybody vv^as dressed up 
in filthy field gray, the ugliest, dirtiest color invented. 

As to William himself, he no longer said : " Some 
more sugar, or coffee," he sang it ; he no longer said his 



284 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

prayers (in public), he ranted them, and he no longer 
addressed a general, or lackey, without striking an 
attitude or haranguing that unhappy person. 

On August 22, 1914, at luncheon, a dispatch was 
received announcing that chief Huntsman Baron 
Heintze was too ill to attend to duty. 

" I should worry," growled the Kaiser, as he ordered 
Rieger to take the wire to the grand marshal. Then 
raising his voice in order to impose silence upon the 
company, he spoke as if addressing an open-air crowd: 
" My commanding generals now play huntsmen for 
me. Listen to these figures: 250 civilians killed at 
Andenne, fifty at Seilles, likewise 150 houses burned at 
these places. The Belgians are learning what good 
huntsmen my troops are, eh? " 

And the same evening General Von Buelow's " Order 
to the inhabitants of Liege," dated August 22, 1914, 
was posted on the newly installed blackboard in the 
Kaiser's anteroom. I have copied it, translating the 
French text : 

ORDER 
To the People of Liege 
The population of Andenne, after making a 
display of peaceful intentions towa^rd bur 
troops, attacked them in the most treacherous 
manner. With my authorization, the general 
commanding these troops has reduced the 
town to ashes and has had 110 persons shot. 
I bring this fact to the knowledge of the 
people of Liege in order that they may know 
what fate to expect should they adopt a simi- 
lar attitude. 

General Von Buelow. 
Liege, 22nd August, 1914. 

The Kaiser read the order aloud to members of the 
court and several dinner guests to show off his French, 
when General Moltke said: "But how does that chimet 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 285 

in with Buelow's wire two days earlier, saying that 
he burned fifty-five houses at Liege, and shot, bayoneted 
and burned twenty-nine civilians ? " 

William gave Moltke an ugly look. " Buelow is 
obeying my orders," he said coldly. 

From that day on the blackboard was kept " gay " 
by similar orders or proclamations, printed on all sorts 
of paper: pink, red, green, mauve, orange, blue; re- 
porting pillage, incendiarism, rape, wholesale shootings, 
razings of villages and towns in Belgium, Northern 
France, Serbia and later in Italy, Russia, Roumania 
and Montenegro. 

When on a visit to the palace, I once caught Wil- 
helm gloating over these figures, descriptive of the 
massacre of women and children, old men and youths. 
"Beats his Majesty's record in the hunting field," he 
said with a horrible air of satisfaction. 

On the same day one of the secretaries showed me 
what Wilhelm wrote to the late Emperor Francis 
Joseph: "I must continue to cut the throats of old 
men, women and children in the occupied districts, or 
the war will last longer than financially convenient. By 
striking terror into the hearts of the French, and in- 
directly of the English, we will cause them to sue for 
peace the sooner, I reckon," — ^his own words. I saw 
them in the copying book. 

Yet by that time William had had eyesigJit knowl- 
edge of the enormities that his troops had practiced and 
were practicing vn Belgium, France and Russia, for 
since the war began he visited the battlefields as he 
had formerly gone to the chase. Whether hares or 
human beings were slain, was all the same to him, so 
long as there were heaps of them. 

Wilhelm had traitors in all the courts except that 
of St. James'. That he never succeeded in seducing 
even one " confounded Englishman or Englishwoman " 
to betray his or her country, was a genuine grievance 
with him. "I have so many friends there and Willie 



286 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

has, I can't understand why I get no response to my 
messages and financial offers," he wailed time and again. 

He had better luck in Rome, both at the Quirinal 
and at the Vatican. 

At the Papal Court was Gerlach, master of the robes 
to the Holy Father — " a bully fellow," as Teddy would 
say. When it comes to dynamite plotting, he can give 
points to Von Papen and Bernstorff." 

In the fall of 1915, the Kaiser actually ordered his 
Herald office to niake Gerlach a knight of the Black 
Eagle. The Herald office consulted with the Chan- 
cellor. 

"Must we carry out that crazy order?" 

" Of course, but I will not have it gazetted." 

" And why is Gerlach so favored ? " 

" He managed the financial end of the blowing up 
of an Italian battleship — I forgot the name." 

And Wilhelm forgot about the Black Eagle for Ger- 
lach until that worthy was concerned in another battle- 
ship blowing up, in August, a year later. 

The master of the robes was subsequently condemned 
to death in Rome, but iled to Switzerland, I am told. 

When Italy declared war, the Kaiser wasn't at all 
worried about " the Dago army and navy," as he desig- 
nated King Victor's forces. " I wonder^whether they 
will have spunk enough to do it," he kept saying while 
scanning dispatches, hot from the wire. 

" Spunk enough for what? " asked Eitel Fritz. 

" Well, ^ou ought to know," replied the Emperor. 
*' You walked through it, the last time you were in 
Rome." 

" Oh, you mean the tunnel from our Embassy under 
Capitol Hill to the great monument ? " 

« Exactly." 

" Well, I clean forgot what it was for," said Eitel. 

" I undertook that great work in order to blow up the 
Victor Emmanuel groups whenever it suited my pur- 
pose," replied the Kaiser, " and it suits my purpose 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 287 

ii_ow, at this moment. Why in h don't they do it," 

he cried stamping his foot. " Don't those duffers know 
now is the time for making an impression ! " 

And he dictated a string of abusive cables to our 
diplomatic agents in Rome, who had just received their 
passports. Of coarse, these wires were politely thrown 
into the waste-basket when Wilhelm turned his back. 

In fine, the responsibility for the war undividedly 
belongs to the Kaiser. His hand was on the throttle; 
though persons and circumstances were pushing the 
lever nearer and nearer, until it almost touched his 
hand, he and none else was in control of the fulcrum 
that chained or loosened the Power. 

The Princes' Trust might whimper and cajole; the 
Crown Prince might rave ; the General Staff supplicate, 
the Chancellor resign, politicians and industrial barons 
might squirm and argue, if Wilhelm, Imperator-Rex, 
hadn't said the word, the dogs of war would never have 
slipped the leash ! 

The royal Hohenzollerns are the biggest land owners 
in Prussia; they own palaces and apartment houses all 
over the world, in New York as well as in London, in 
Canada, in France, in Alaska, on the Mediterranean, in 
India and South America. And this same Hohenzollern 
family, made it a point to confiscate the private for- 
tunes of the kings they deposed. ' 

Hereunder I'll give a list of Hohenzollern possessions 
on the German soil. The authorities in foreign coun- 
tries can easily find out the ex-Kaiser's holdings and 
investments under their jurisdiction. 

In 1914, the Kaiser's income from all sources was 
twenty-two million marks or $5,500,000 per year, and 
was tax-free. 

His cash deposits at various banks amounted to 
$5,000,000. 

The Kaiser owns absolutely three palaces in Berlin 
and thirteen in Potsdam and neighborhood. In other 
parts of Germany he owns twenty-four more palaces 



288 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

and country houses, but the several palaces at Casse], 
at Hamburg, Wiesbaden, Hanover, Celle, Osnabruck, 
and Glucksburg are not his, but property of the state. 

It is not quite clear whether the royal castle in 
Berlin belongs to the Kaiser absolutely, but the con- 
tents do, and their value is estimated at $4,000,000. 

The Kaiser owns in Germany 74,420 acres of forest 
property and 47,439 acres of tillable land, the greater 
part of which are in the hands of tenants. Out of his 
landed property in Germany, the Kaiser used to draw a 
little less than $1,000,000 per annum. 

The value of the Kaiser's landed property in Germany 
is over $17,000,000 unburdened by mortgages. 

The entire family fortunes of the Hohenzollerns, 
compromising the entailed estates, are estimated at 
175,000,000 marks, $43,750,000. 

The Crown Prince is also a big land owner. His 
Dukedom of Oels alone is worth at least $4,000,000. 



ADDENDA 

THE BLACK BANQUET 

A Companion Incident to the Kaiser's Plot For Kid- 
napping Earl Kitchener and Lord Roberts 

By Judson C. Welliver. 

When I read, in the manuscript of the Baroness von 
Larisch Reddern, the story of a German court intrigue 
to inveigle Earl Kitchener and Lord Roberts into a re- 
mote part of Germany on the eve of the war, and there 
hold " the brains of the British army," I was probably 
less disposed than most people to dismiss it as gro- 
tesque, preposterous and impossible; and for a curious 
reason. 

The war being ended, and the stream of revelations 
about its origin being at full flood, I feel at liberty to 
give publicity to an incident which sheds light on Ger- 
man methods, and makes the Black Forest conspiracy 
seem far less improbable than it otherwise might. So 
far as I can learn, the dramatic tale of German social 
and industrial spying which I am going to relate very 
briefly, has never before been published. In September, 
1917, as London correspondent of the New York Sun, 
it came to my knowledge and I wrote it for The Sun; 
but the British censor, for reasons which will be ob- 
vious enough as the story develops, suppressed it. I 
wrote the story for The Sun a day or two after it was 
told to me, while it was fresh in mind ; and having mis- 
givings as to whether the censor would view it amiably, 
I preserved a copy, which is before me as I now write. 

No injunction of confidence was imposed when Ijje 
story was related to me, and I have absolutely no doubt 



290 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 

of its correctness. One consideration moving me to 
the present statement is the hope that it may induce 
others, with fuller information, to give further facts 
about Germany's pre-war plots. 

The circumstances in which the tale came to my 
attention may be stated in a few words. About the 
beginning of September, 1917, in company with several 
other American correspondents in London, I was in- 
vited to visit, as guest of the propaganda division of 
the Foreign Office, some of the important centers of 
war industry to inspect the mobilization of British 
producing capacity on war work. The trip took us 
finally to Sheffield, seat of the greatest among the vari- 
ous plants of the Vickers-Maxim Company, foremost 
British establishment for production of necessaries of 
war. The concern is to Great Britain what Krupp's 
is to Germany. At the time of our visit we were told 
that it employed about 150,000 people, and that the 
best information obtainable was that approximately 
a like number was then working in the Krupp es- 
tablishments. Vickers-Maxim will make you anything 
from a pocket knife to a turbined liner ; from a rifle 
cartridge to a 16-inch gun with carriage and full 
equipment. 

Necessarily, such an establishment is the scene of 
endless experiments, the repository of industrial se- 
crets which, in a world-war of science and machinery, 
are of incalculable importance. To know everything 
possible about the equipment, capacity, processes and 
current activities of Vickers-Maxim would be of utmost 
advantage to the German military and industrial chiefs 
on the verge of their plunge into the struggle for 
world conquest. So, just as we are told the Kaiser's 
clique planned, under mask of social amenity, to kid- 
nap the two great soldiers of Britain just at the eve 
of hostilities, it also planned and executed an expert 
inspection of Vickers-Maxim's, disguised as a visit of 
courtesy and international comity, with the ladies play- 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 291 

ing an important part in camouflaging its real, sinister 
character. 

After our inspection of the Vickers-Maxim works, 
we were driven to the administration building, where* 
in the public banquet hall a luncheon had been pre- 
pared for us. Dignitaries of the corporation, local 
prominents of Sheffield, and a number of military and 
naval officers, added to our party of journalists, made 
up a luncheon company of perhaps thirty. We sat at 
a beautifully appointed table in the center of the hall, 
and over the wine and nuts conversation broke into 
duos and trios and confidences. My own partner was 
an important Sheffield citizen who if recollection is not 
amiss was also a director of the company. Here is, 
very briefly, his story of the social spy inspection 
.of Vickers-Maxim just as the war was about to break: 

" In the summer of 1914 a British naval force paid 
a visit to Kiel for the German j^acht races, in which 
the Kaiser was much interested. A little later we 
learned in Sheffield that a party of distinguished Ger- 
mans was coming here to visit Vickers-Maxim. It was 
at a time when, as we all now confidently believe, the 
decision for war had already been secretly made at 
Berlin and Vienna. 

" The German party represented a ceremonious visit 
of Krupps to Vickers-Maxim and was headed by 
Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach and his wife, who had 
been Bertha Krupp, heiress to control of the great 
steel and arms works. There were executives of the 
Krupps, department experts, military and naval of- 
ficers; many of them accompanied by their wives. It 
was precisely a party of men whose trained eyes could 
take in the most of whatever might be useful to them 
later. 

" We received them with a ceremony befitting such 
a distinguished visitation. From the beginning, we 
noted their keen interest in making much more than 
a casual visit to our plants. They were not concerned 



292 SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 



1 



about the social side of the occasion, but they did 
manage to display an annoying and very expert interest 
in all details of our business. Courtesy and delicacy 
were forgotten, in their eagerness to see, study, know 
everything; especially things we did not care to have 
them know. 

"Their eagerness overreached. In proportion as 
they were more anxious to inform themselves, our offi- 
cers were more insistent on thwarting their purpose. 
A ceremony of conferring the freedom of the town 
was insisted upon just at the time when certain of 
the guests were intensely desirous of seeing a partic- 
ular important process performed. Tarpaulins were 
thoughtfully thrown over some mechanisms that, hav- 
ing to do with transportation of great guns, we did not 
care to have inspected: the gowns of the ladies must 
be protected ! Really, I think they learned little ; the 
special courtesy of granting a holiday to many em- 
ployes in honor of the visit may have disappointed 
them, but we have never regarded it as a bad invest- 
ment ! 

" The ceremonial climax of the visit was a great 
banquet, in this very hall. German guests and Eng- 
lish hosts alternated about this table where we now 
sit; flowers were everywhere, the illumination brilliant. 
The company was gay, the conversation largely dealt 
with exchanging assurances of eternal friendship be- 
tween our two great nations. If our guests were dis- 
appointed at learning more about British hospitality 
than about Vickers tempering of high-speed steel or 
Vickers methods of rolling 12-inch armor plate, they 
concealed the fact well. 

" The dinner was at its height, the champagne was 
flowing and conversation was easy, when a strange 
thing occurred. Nothing like it had ever happened 
here before, nor has it since. To this day I assure you 
that I don't know how it came about. 

" The lights went out ! In an instant the hall was 



SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER 293 

plunged from brilliancy to Egyptian darkness. No 
ray came in through the windows, whose heavy curtains 
had been drawn. 

" There were exclamations of surprise, and then the 
English men and women, burst into laughter and chaf- 
fing. Silence, deep as the impenetrable darkness, fell 
on our guests. Plainly, it contained no humor for 
them. We could feel their discomfiture, amazement, 
panic. 

" Then, those of us who remained in our seats real- 
ized that the others were leaving their places, shuf- 
fling blindly, hurriedly, toward one end of the room, 
as if by some common understanding. It was a 
strangely tense moment; panic was in the air; panic 
that seemed strangely uncalled for as result of so or- 
dinary a mishap to an electric lighting system. 

" I doubt if two minutes had elapsed before the 
lights were switched on again in a dazzling flood. We 
in our seats started to laugh once more, but a little 
nervously; and then all at once we realized that every 
one of our guests had left the table. 

" Looking about, in that first moment of illumina- 
tion, we discovered that the entire German party, 
ashen-faced, desperately frightened, intensely nervous, 
had found tlieir way to one end of the room where they 
were gathered in a confused group. The men glared 
toward the doors; nothing happened; reassurance 
came, and they drifted back to their places at the 
board, men and women alike displaying all the non- 
chalance they could — and proving themselves very poor 
dissemblers. 

" The festivities were resumed, and the banquet con- 
cluded according to program. But its spirit was gone. 
I cannot explain my feelings. Something had been re- 
vealed to us in that instant, but we didn't know what 
it was. So far as we could formulate a question, we 
English were asking ourselves, ' Why such terror over 
so little an accident ? ' 



294^ SECRET LIFE OF THE KAISER ■ 

" Plainly, our guests were stricken with fright ; 
seemingly, with no real cause whatever. 

" A few weeks later the war started, and then we 
understood, or were sure we did. The courtesy visit 
to Sheffield was a carefully planned, skillfully organ- 
ized spying expedition. The men, at least, among our 
guests, knew exactly why they were there. When they 
found themselves in darkness they thought we, too, 
knew, and had trapped them. They expected arrest, 
and were prepared to fight. I have no doubt that any 
untoward incident would have brought a revolver from 
every German hip, and a nasty affair might have re- 
sulted. I am sure that no Englishman who was with 
us that night doubts that this is the explanation." 

There is the story. I leave it for some novelist to 
weave the threads of intrigue into that knot of terri- 
fied German aristocracy trembling at the end of the 
banquet hall, and then to unravel them again through 
the events of a long-plotted, carefully-planned con- 
spiracy against the peace of the world, that brought 
the Great War. For myself, I find no difficulty be- 
lieving the tale of the Black Forest conspiracy. It 
was full brother to the conspiracy of the Black Ban- 
quet. Bernhardi told " How Germany Makes War." 
These two tales give a glimpse of the hideous indecen- 
cies with which Germany makes ready for war. 



